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batsarebetterthanpeople · 2 years

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Ok so I guess I kinda want to lay out why I'm more willing to forgive Ed's actions at the end of Season 1 than I am to forgive Izzy's even though Ed made murder attempts and Izzy didn't. It has to do with the morality of the show and the way that they've treated every other murder attempt up to that point. Stede and Nigel, Jim and Lucius, Ed and Stede, Izzy and Stede, Spanish Jackie and Geraldo, Mary and Stede, Buttons/Roach and The Swede all of these are treated with comedy and either immediately forgiven or breezed past or (in the case of Nigel) felt guilty about but ultimately treated as not that big a deal aside from the inner turmoil it causes Stede. With the exception of Calico Jack and Karl and Chauncey and Stede, literally no one gives a fuck when murder happens in this show. They just repeatedly try to kill each other with a like a 30% success rate and they keep it pushin. Death is, of course, an unavoidable part of a pirate lifestyle. All this to say that show by episode 10 has established I world where murder attempts aren't that big a deal and can usually be sorted out with a conversation if they can't be ignored all together, and that's the world in which Ed pushed Lucius overboard. That's the world in which Ed leaves the crew on a desert island. I still think he should have to answer for those actions of course, but it's not out of left feild or completely unforgivable.

Izzy on the other hand, his action have all come from a place of trying to control Ed and keep Ed stagnant. This show has character growth and self actualization set up as it's highest moral good. Izzy doesn't just try to kill Stede, that's not what makes a villain in Our Flag. Mary and Ed both make attempts that are forgiven immediately. What makes a villain is trying to keep other people from realizing themselves. Nigel and Chauncey do it to Stede by bullying him and insisting that his father was right and hes a bored little rich boy who will never amount to anything and refusing to accept him as a real pirate. Calico Jack does it to Ed by holding their shared history over his head and by insisting that pirates don't have friends. Izzy, in my opinion, is the worst offender by far here as he makes a deal with the fucking devil (the British Navy) in order to regain control over Ed. He insists that Ed is better off dead than happy. He breaks Ed down and refuses to let Ed be more than what he is on pain of death. He is straight up enacting abuse. If he has to sacrifice a toe to drag Ed down to his level than so be it, so long as Blackbeard is himself again. And before anyone says "if murder isn't that bad then why is threatening murder so bad" it's not just that he's threatening murder it's that he's enacting psychological warfare against Ed's very being. And on top of that he's doing it when Ed is already at the lowest he's ever been. In this way I think that Ed's greatest crime at the end is not what he did to Stede, or to Izzy, or to the marooned crew, or even to Lucius, it's actually what he did to Jim. By keeping Jim on after they gave up their revenge quest, he's unintentionally forcing them back into a life of revenge and violence, and by separating them from Oluwande he's keeping them from their chosen family. This is unintentional so I think it's more redeemable than an Izzy or a Jack or a Badminton (and it must be because Ed is still the love interest, he still plays the roll of the protagonist. He is not a villain, he will never be a villain no matter how edgy he dresses or how many murders he commits or how many evil evil montages he has set to Leonard Cohen songs) but it is still a crime that I think he'll have to answer for.

So yeah. In the morality of the Our Flag Means Death universe marooning and throwing people overboard for no reason are bad things, but they're not as bad as I think a lot of the fandom has made them out to be. And I think we have simultaneously forgotten just how fucked up Izzy's actions are.

#ofmd #our flag means death #blackbeard #edward teach #blackbeard ofmd #edward teach ofmd #izzy critical #izzy hands #jim jimenez #ofmd meta

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batsarebetterthanpeople · 1 year

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do you think jack was hurt when the crew chose to stay with stede and no one wanted to come with him, the most fun guy?

Probably not. I actually saw a take from an Izzy Stan once that I low key agreed with but I didn't reblog it because obviously, but it is relevant here so I'll repeat it.

Jack and Ed have a similar response or a crowd turning against them, probably because they came up in piracy similarly, but they have that response for vastly different reasons, and in different ways.

When a crowd turns against Ed he takes it personally and tries to kill everybody. When a crowd turns against Jack he doesn't take it personally and tries to kill everybody. I hope this makes sense (using episodes 5, 8, and 10 as evidence) somewhere along the line they both learned that the correct reaction to a crowd turning against you is to try to get rid of as many of them as you can, which makes sense, if you're a pirate captain and a crew turns against you it's mutiny o'clock. And Ed and Jack are the two pirate captains ever so...

Now I could see an argument for the Jack doesn't take it personally assertion because he does in fact say the line "well when tie an anchor around your leg and toss you overboard it feels pretty personal." And Ed has the line "I know he comes on a bit strong at first but he's insecure". I tend to think he could be insecure without taking that specific scene with Karl personally given that it's repeatedly established that the crew aren't very serious pirates, which I think Jack gives wayyyyy less of a fuck about than Izzy so long as they're drinking with him, but could still probably use to mend a bruised ego. so whether he takes things like this personal hinges on the tossing you overboard line, which he may or may not have been lying about. We have no solid evidence either way. So I tend to waffle based on what's funniest. I've been on a he's lying kick recently because he's my garbage little dirtbag meowmeow. But sometimes I think about him surviving three separate mutinies and having to agree to this plan because he's broke now and I think about the fact that he showed up in a dinghy and I'm like... Meow meow is also having a midlife crisis and he can't die and that is very funny to me. So that statement about him not taking it personally might not be true and as much as I think the line about pirates not needing friends was pure gass to try to hurt Ed for leaving, which he absolutely would have cried about later if the cannonball hadn't immediately given him much bigger problems, he is pretty fucking blaze about the whole thing the next day. And he was planning on leaving with just Ed.

Now what I want you to consider is imagine he has been mutinied three times. I didn't think about this til right now but I want us to think more about why he does say "whose with me in" this scene. If enough of those fuckers agree to leave with him, Stede is no longer the fucker with the boat, Jack can leave Stede and Buttons on the beach of blind man's cove for the British to find the next day, take his crew, and fuck off to go be Bonnie and Clyde core evil boyfriends with Ed again. That was never ever ever gonna happen but I feel like Jack doesn't quite know how astronomically long of a shot that is. I haven't thought about why he would faument mutiny against Stede other than "he's a douchebag and trying to take a shot as he leaves" until now but there is a reason. Like any more opportunist less tightly knit pirate crew would be like "sorry about your bird Buttons but Blackbeard and Calico Jack know what they're doing we can make more money if we go with them"

Jack doesn't know how deep these emotional ties run is what I'm saying. He doesn't know they're fambly. He doesn't know that Ed is madly in love with the guy who he's been hanging out with for *checks notes* these past few weeks/one moon cycle. How would he know that? He showed up yesterday and spent all of it drunk.

I think too much about this man.

Anyway TL;DR: nah he seems way to chill about it the next day and I think his intention was always to leave with Just Ed he just wanted to see if he could get more bang for his buck and when he couldn't ... Well... "Later losers."

#my alcoholic meow meow #calico jack ofmd #calico jack

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