#words cannot describe how much i love toby stephens

[popwasabi]

Civilization is coming: “Black Sails” and when rage is justified

(SPOILERS ahead! You’ve been warned...)

There’s a moment late in the first episode of the highly underappreciated series “Black Sails” that hints not only at the troubled past of its lead character Captain Flint but also describes the larger theme of the story.

Flint has gotten himself into trouble. Along with his crewmember Billy “Bones,” in an effort to secure the financing he needs to capture the gold from the Spanish warship known as L’Urca de Lima, his recklessness has gotten Nassau’s governor shot and injured and his plans all but evaporated. Billy feels they are now in too deep and they should not only turn back but perhaps new leadership is needed for Flint’s crew. It is here that Flint reveals a bit where his true ambitions lie.

(Toby Stephens, ladies and gentlemen.)

On the first viewing, Flint ominously declaring the pending arrival of “civilization” to the new world could mean anything from simply the imperialistic tendencies of the British and Spanish empire, to the draconian rulership of the crown or just “taxes” as he makes light mention of in this speech. But as the series progresses, especially in the second season, “civilization” begins to take a darker, more personal meaning.

The story begins to reveal that the dangerous pirates of Nassau are not at least inherently dastardly, although certainly violent, but victims of their various circumstances; a former slave turned prostitute turned keeper of secrets in Max, a neglected daughter becoming the bookkeeper of the pirates with Eleanor Guthrie, another former slave turned ruthless pirate captain in the vicious Charles Vane, and an abused woman turned deadliest pirate on the island Anne Bony, and none more painfully revealing than that of Flint himself.

You see Flint didn’t always go by this name, he used to be a prominent officer in the British navy named James McGraw until he met Thomas Hamilton, a wealthy proprietor tasked with solving the problem of the pirates of Nassau many years prior. Thomas had the radical idea of pardoning the entire island to bring them back into society, to avoid violence and bloodshed, and to better understand the people who would turn to piracy.

As James gets to know him more and his revolutionary philosophies of empathy and enlightenment the two unexpectedly fall in love and thus seal the fates of both their downfalls from “civilized” society.

With England unwilling to see any other way to end the pirates without exterminating all of them and looking to exploit weaknesses in Thomas to Parliament, he is outed and imprisoned. James along with Thomas’s wife Miranda, who lives in a polyamorous relationship between the two, are persona non-grata-ed and the two flee to Nassau to finish what Thomas started in an act of rebellion.

(This is seriously one of the most heart-wrenching, tragic reveals I have ever seen on TV. I totally knew it was coming at the time and I was still not prepared for how it was delivered.)

There are few things as personal as love and “Black Sails” uses this to show how far society can go to villainize people. Flint wasn’t born a monster, and he is not one for loving Thomas; he is a monster because “civilization” wanted him to be one.

As our own civilization enters a timeline that may promise great change, people who have been othered and victimized by society are finding themselves grappling with their pain and grief in the same way as Flint. People have tried peaceful reconciliation and conformity into society to avoid violence throughout history despite the labels they have been given for no other crime than being who they are, but civilization’s need for a monster always brings people down no matter how hard they try to do it the “right way.”

(Tell me if you see a justice system in this picture that looks interested in listening...)

Native Americans tried playing by the white man’s rules when America began moving west. Compromising over and over again and yet they were killed and still killed and neglected today for it.

African Americans tried becoming rich like their white counterparts in places like “Black Wallstreet” in Tulsa, Oklahoma  and were still bombed and massacred for it.

Asian and Latin Americans immigrated here to flee war and death largely caused by white imperialist countries, to survive and work jobs white Americans would not. Both are othered as foreigners, face violence from the state, and are deported everyday.

Poor working-class Americans try fruitlessly to keep their head above water as they become mired in debt, fighting a pandemic on slave wages essentially, all while our government cuts wealthy companies a fat paycheck annually with our own tax dollars. And anyone who fights back finds themselves without an income and health insurance during a recession and a pandemic.

And the LGBTQ+ community ask for the dignity to be left alone and treated normally but not only are they harassed for it but they are beaten, tortured, and killed for being different.

(Remember, Stonewall was a riot.)

Flint, himself, tries one last time, toward the end of season two, to peacefully resolve his vendetta with England and save Nassau from a war with them but instead finds himself facing the gallows anyways by the Charlestown government.

As they read out his charges, many of them real heinous things he did but also many that were fabricated, Flint stops them from proceeding any further and delivers a final act of defiance to the court.

“I have one regret,” he begins to the court of high society folks who are only interested in seeing him punished before the masses. “I regret ever coming to this place with the assumption that a reconciliation could be found. That reason could be a bridge between us. Everyone is a monster to someone. Since you are so convinced that I am yours, I will be it.”

It is at this point in the story that Flint, perhaps like other revolutionaries of the past, recognize that the system doesn’t want to reason with him, that these people aren’t looking to understand or empathize with him or even try for that matter. They wanted a monster, they made one in him, so he decides there that “civilization” as he had noted in the series first episode is not worth reconciling with and certainly not worthy of forgiveness.

And Flint spends the rest of the series in bloody war with them.

(From season 3. Again Toby Stephens, ladies and gentlemen)

“Black Sails” is about queerness, race, social politics, and the way conformity by force is used against it. It’s about the rage that boils underneath many of us as we are wronged over and over again by society, while being exploited to no end, and what happens when someone finally says “enough.”

Anyone who has experienced what it is like to be othered can find something deeply personal with the anger that Flint carries around with him in each scene of this series. We feel his pain of rejection by society, his grief for feeling ashamed of himself when he and the audience know he shouldn’t.

It's what makes the eventual reveal of his relationship with Thomas so cathartic, as we see the rage-filled guard of Flint drop as he reads Thomas’s words left for him in a book they both loved and shared.

(Again, I cannot emphasize enough how much of a gut-punch this reveal was watching this...)

"Know no shame” is so important to growth of this character and the message of this story. Civilization and those who wish to keep the status quo want those who do not fall in line with their authority and judgments to feel shame for who they are. They not only want monsters, they want you to feel like one and the reason Thomas line speaks so much to both Flint and the audience is that it reminds us there is no shame in who we are.

The country we live in is a powder keg right now experiencing the same rage that Flint feels and more specifically how he felt at the end of season 2. Though this country’s racist attitudes and subjugation of the vulnerable hardly started with this presidency it cannot be argued that it has brought all that hatred in our government and the people who support those views painfully to the surface. When people peacefully protest, peacefully assemble, and peacefully try to cast their vote and are still met with resistance, still met with hatred and violence, people have to start to wonder if operating within the system’s rules can actually affect change.

A lot has been made about the way protesters may have violently lashed out over the past three weeks, with media talking heads and privileged elites asking unironically why they couldn’t do things peacefully but more has been done as result of the rising tension than the previous 50 years combined. You can tell people to “#vote” all you want but it doesn’t change the fact that people have been trying that for decades and people are still getting quite literally killed for it.

(Again, I gotta ask, who is this protecting? Who is this serving?)

If there’s one takeaway I hope a viewer gets from “Black Sails” is that revolution, no matter how serious you are about it, should never be off the table when confronting systemic inequality. A racist, sexist, classist, and/or, in the case of Flint, homophobic power structure does not concede their power if you play to their convenience and when people are being put down, beaten, and often killed for showing their anger at this, calling for “law and order” becomes a slap in the face to the victims.

A government or system that treats you unjustly doesn’t deserve peace.

I’ll say it again.

A government or system that treats you unjustly doesn’t deserve peace.

No one wants it to get this far, I definitely don’t, and certainly not every peaceful mean has been exhausted yet in this fight perhaps but this country was literally founded on violent rebellion after being slighted all the same by out of balance power structures. I’m not advocating for violence or to take up arms against the state right now BUT no one should ever rule it out when the social contract keeps being broken and broken and broken again by those in charge who clearly don’t want to listen.

A government should always feel the threat of an uprising if it keeps wronging its people.

(See my blog post about “Do the Right Thing” if you need help understanding this quote.)

As the more fiery weeks of the protests seem to be in the rearview mirror and we find less activity and calls to action on our social media timelines, I want to remind you all to not let up with whatever you are choosing to do to help and keep fighting back out there. The people who stand to benefit from having angst of the general public leave and dissipate from our collective consciousness want us to forget how angry we are, they want us to feel fatigued and disinterested in continuing the push forward because “this is how they win” as Flint would say.

(Again, Toby Fucking Stephens, everyone.)

We have so much more power than we realize, just look at how much got done just by everyone uniting behind one marginalized group finally over the past three weeks. When we realize we are fighting essentially in the same battle for respect and dignity, justice in our society can be achieved. It can be done, and maybe just maybe we can finally change the world. Afterall who else has been as close to achieving it as we are right now?

Fight for your dignity and respect and stand in solidarity with others in their own fights as well, and always remember “know no shame.”

Raise the colors and Happy Pride, everyone! (credit: Luluxa on Tumblr)

[captain-flint]

1/2 I allow you to kill me because I'm gonna do the unthinkable thing: disagree with Toby Stephens. First of all, I bow to him. No one could've played Flint as perfectly as he did. He is unreal! But there is one thing I disagree with him. :) I do not think that rage is Flint's sole motivation. It's the majority of his motivation, no doubt. But I do believe that there is more to it.

2/2 “I cannot believe we are so poorly made as that” and “Freedom in the dark” speeches are too powerful to be a delusion. They are too raw and heartbreaking. He can’t be deluding himself in those moments. He must genuinely believe in it. No way, no way he can deliver those words and not believe in them. Yes, he’s angry and I love him for it. I love that he wants revenge. But I do believe that a little bit of idealism still lives in him and it comes out in those two beautiful speeches.

!!!! i very much agree, actually, with you and with toby. essentially, flint is a character with a dual personality. he’s james mcgraw and james flint, a good man and a ‘villain’, a born cynic and inspired idealist. toby focused on one side of flint while describing him, that is he kind of oversimplified him, which i understand bc what he described is the overpowering, dominant side of flint and the side that was relevant within the context of the story he was currently talking about. flint’s hopeful, kind and forgiving side of him is more subtle, something that’s constantly overshadowed by his still very much present cynicism and distrust of both the system and most people around him. i didn’t think much of toby’s words besides that i agreed with them, but now that you brought it up i have to talk about it. strap in this might get long and boring because it’s me talking about flint ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

speaking of his idealism, what i find so fascinating about this character is his uwavering strength in protecting that fragile sense of hope considering the world he was forced to live in. once that idealism had been instilled, no matter how hellish the struggle the world had put him through was, no matter how fragile that hope had become, it never died. his idealism perservered. and it all started with thomas. this awe-inspiring man whose talks of goodness and kindness in people and need to rethink systemic things made him realize that the world and its people he saw as ‘’brutal and unforgiving’’ weren’t above change for the better. being born a good man, thomas’ overwhelming idealism that could’ve blinded every good soul on the planet took root in james and only grew from that moment on. 

however, flint’s faith never reached the same depth as thomas’. where thomas believed in people in general and saw good in just about everyone, flint’s faith was in individuals. in the few good people in his life he deemed capable enough of changing the world. in people like thomas and miranda (‘’Who better qualified to oversee the building of the New World than Thomas?’‘), and later silver and madi (‘‘And you think I’m the one best suited to lead our people through this? I think that you are the best of us.The two of you together are the world in balance’‘). his trust in those people was steadfast and true. he believed their goodness could’ve changed the world for the better, but more importantly they were a promise, a reminder that somewhere out there must be more people like them, people who can fight the oppression and make a difference. (‘’I cannot believe that that is all there is. I cannot believe we are so poorly made as that.’‘) they were his true idealism, the bridge to a greater world. what breaks my heart the most, though, is that he never really considered himself to be one of them, one of the good guys, so he allowed himself the freedom to take what he believed was his and theirs with fist and sword. i actually talked about this once before. i think flint believed himself to be the tool used to push the boundaries and achieve a breakthrough within the society. someone who would incite a revolution and bring the world to its knees so the good people could recreate a new, better one. he actually admits it on a few ocassions: ‘’I don’t think that there’s a part for Captain Flint in Nassau’s future.Not with the blood on his hands.’‘, and later on when he purposely excludes himself from silver and madi’s future as the leaders of nassau. 

however, putting his faith in people aside as it has been unchanging and deep ever since he first stood up for thomas and miranda, i think his idealism when it comes to the world change itself over time steered in a weird direction. i kind of see his pursuits as two different versions of an ideal world, both fought for with the people he loved and both, despite their difference, unattainable. the one he was trying to achieve with thomas, had they succeeded, would’ve been a very different world than the one he was trying to achieve with silver. to put it simply, the first one would’ve been attained with mercy and forgiveness. the change would’ve been swift and radical, but the world would’ve most likely been unsullied by blood and tragedy. this type of idealism was noble, good, the kind that thomas was preaching about and the kind that inspired james’ own idealism. but as deep-rooted as that idealism was, i think that with time it went a little askew and that ideal world he had envisioned for himself and everybody else after thomas was gone became yet another unachievable goal, only this time with a path to it paved with nothing but blood and tragedy of both the guilty and the innocent. in between his outbursts of rage and violence, flint did try to sue for peace, more than once and in the least destructive ways, and every time the world spat in his face and made him even more aware of its cruelty and resentment of the people like him. with every failed attempt to reason with the civilization he was more driven to simply destroy it all and rebuild from the ashes. with every failed attempt he was moving farther away from where he started, from thomas’ initial attempt for a peaceful and reasonable outcome and steering towards destruction. the idealism still thrived in flint, he believed in everything he said, every powerful, tear-jerking monologue was true to his soul and invoke sympathy, he still believed in those individuals to set them all free, but it all sort of merged with his anger and this obsessive need for vengeance where the ends always seemed to justify the means in his eyes, so what was once pure became something mutilated and questionable rather than inspiring. 

both silver and julius were right in a sense. flint’s desire to change the world so quickly and brutally wouldn’t have resulted in a victory, not yet. the world was too strong for that, and his war was going to be a neverending nightmare for everyone involved. so, really, toby wasn’t wrong. flint is, fundementally, driven by rage and revenge against england for what it did to him and his loved ones. as you said, it’s the majority of his motivation and nearly everything he does or says kind of stems from that, even a part of his idealism. when toby said flint is playing out his own psychodrama on a massive scale, that he’s not waging war for altruistic reasons, that’s very much true and it becomes even more prominent as the seasons go and the world takes more from him. flint is not a freedom fighter. he’s not a hero. we are proven time and time again that he was ready to sacrifice almost whatever and whoever to further his war and reach the outcome he wants. had his goal not had been freedom from the oppression, he wouldn’t have been seen as the ally in the eyes of so many. he knew that what he was doing could’ve benefited everyone, that’s in part how he won the people to his side, and even though i personally believe a certain part of him truly, selflessly wanted to serve that freedom to them bc he was aware of their suffering as much as he was of his own, it still first and foremost had to have benefited him. 

i also have to bring up Lauren Sarner’s review about the last episode here because she talks exactly about this and honestly i trust her judgment when it comes to black sails more than anything: Flint’s monologue, aside from being beautiful, also reveals his truest nature. Silver sees Flint as being filled with rage, and he is. But deep down, he’s also never relinquished Thomas’s idealism. Flint wanted to wage war against the world, but his belief in his ability to change it — and in Silver and Madi’s ability to see it through — was genuine. To say Flint only fought for rage is only half of the picture.

[beanabouttown]

James and Thomas being The Softest (2/2)

[severelyfoggytragedy-blog]

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