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iamadequate1 · 4 months

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Black Pete vs Izzy (Pt 1)

I've long thought that Izzy and Black Pete are analogous like Prince Ricky and Stede. They have surface level similarities, but there is an undercurrent that sends their characters in wildly different directions. The mood has struck me to do a painstaking comparison of the two!

Starting disclaimer: Mind the "Izzy Critical" tag for realsy. I was not charmed by Izzy in S2, and I firmly view him as an antagonist all the way through. I also love Black Pete, though, and forgive all his sins.

This is going to be long and messy, but it is mine. I used to have it in one large post, but now I'm going to break this up into at least three separate posts. I have about 12 points, and it's gonna be a surprise how this develops. Let's begin!

#1: Pete and Izzy are both introduced as expressing displeasure in Stede's style of piracy

Everyone who isn't Ed seems to think poorly of Stede's pirate skills when they first meet him, but Pete and Izzy seem to be unique in that their character introductions in the series is them being most vocal about it.

Pete introduces the "real pirate" view of Stede before Stede's onscreen introduction. He gives us the first conversation of the series, and it is not flattering!

Pete: Fuck this! I'm out. Crew: Hey! Oluwande: What're you doin'? Pete: I didn't sign up to play cards. Weeks we've been out here with nothing to show for it. I should have... 20 kills by now, at least.

First of all, "nothing to show for it", and the screen is focused on Lucius. Petey, you gain a hubby from this, but you just don't know it yet!

Anyway, Pete's introducing right away that Stede is not up to real pirate captain standards when viewed by outsiders. After their first (and truly epic) raid, Pete is the first one to clearly criticize Stede:

Stede: Here it is: the spoils of battle! Woo-hoo. Congratulations on today's raid. I do have some notes, though. Uh, opening speech went well. Very inspiring. Uh, oh yes, I guess the big note is more energy! We're swashbuckling, we're looting. Let's have fun with it. Pete: Stealing a plant is hardly swashbuckling.

Like Pete, Izzy's very first scene in the series, he's not at all impressed with the Eccentric Pirate Bonnet and his savage, insane, vengeful pirate horde.

Izzy (also talking to historical Israel Hands): What kind of fuckin' idiot runs his ship aground? And this lot managed to take English officers hostage.

As a bonus, Izzy's disdain for Stede extends to Stede's entire crew! Upon meeting the entire crew in 1x4, we get Izzy's assessment to Ed:

Ed: Let's get to it. What've we got here? Izzy: Well, the ship sustained some damage in the crossfire, and the crew's completely useless, bottom of the barrel.

When Izzy is forced to partake in the teaching raid at the beginning of the next episode, he says:

Izzy: Crew of Revenge, you are not to engage. You are simply here to observe how real pirates function in the real world. Pete: Uh, we are also real pirates in the real world, so.

Yes, Petey, stand up for yourself! He was the "real pirate" in the pilot, but as the first season moved into its second act, the show starts to demonstrate more of how The Revenge is an anomaly in the pirate world even with the character who is the "real pirate" at the start. (Also, weird that we don't see Izzy on the raid that directly follows! How were they supposed to learn??)

#2: Pete and Izzy start as anti-soft

They both start the series with tinges (to very different degrees) of toxic masculinity: a push to being "manly" and dominant, minimizing emotional vulnerability, derision of the feminine or "weak." Nigel is the beginning example of this in the series as he calls Stede weak and mocks him picking flowers. On the crew side of the cast, Pete and Izzy are the ones who display these traits the strongest.

In the first episode, Pete is the most disdainful of Stede's super sweet flag activity, using misogynistic language.

Stede: Now, each of you will create a flag. And we'll vote for the best one, and that will be the official flag for The Revenge. Pete: I'm not fuckin' sewing. That's women's work. Stede: Oh, Black Pete, come on now. You know that's not true.

After their encounter with the British in the same episode, he makes disparaging remarks about a soft approach when attempting to fool the officers:

Roach: It's always the quiet ones. Frenchie: I thought that was fairly badass. Swede: You got to admit, he pulled it off. Pete: Pulled what off? Making us dress up like a bunch of fancy boys?

He doesn't make any comments as aggressively anti-femme after the pilot, but as we move along, we see him in a tender scene at the end of 1x6 when he gives Lucius the wooden finger and confesses that this feelings are deeper than a quick hookup:

Pete: So, uh, listen, I, I thought I was going to lose you. Lucius: Oh, yeah. Well, you nearly did 'cause I had a really bad infection, so. Pete: Exactly. And, uh, and, death, you know, I'm used to death, but, um, but not, um, your death. Uh, so anyway, I, uh, made this for you. It looks like a thumb, but it's a finger. I whittled it. It's, it's dumb. You don't have to wear it. Kiss: *happens, awwww* Lucius: I love it, and I didn't know you whittled. Pete: There's a lot you don't know about me... actually, that's kind of it.

At this point, we had seen Stede and Ed open up about some of their insecurities (see: Ed's bathtub confession just before this, or Stede talking to the therapist in 1x2), but this is the first scene we get a character confessing their feelings about someone to that someone in series. It's scary, it's vulnerable, and even though it's couched in violent language, it's very soft. It's also the round about confession phrasing similar to what we have with Oluwande to Jim in 1x7 or Ed to Stede in 1x9. Pete in the pilot would not have believably played this scene.

Pete progresses through the season, but in the last episode of the first season, instead of shaming him, Pete claps and makes (awkward) supportive comments to Ed's breakup song and even willingly dresses up as a "fancy boy" in the resulting talent show.

He's trying! Going into Season 2, he doesn't have a reaction at all to a woman (Zheng) calling him soft, and he just rolls with it.

Izzy, on the other hand, keeps his gendered insults throughout S1. In 1x4, we get "I'm not dying. Not for that ponce and not for you." In the next episode, we walks in on Lucius and Pete having a hookup with Wee John in the room taking a nap. He lashes out at all of them, but...

Izzy: You're all getting specific duties. Lucius: No thanks, Iggy. I only take orders from my Captain. Izzy: My name is Mr. Hands, First Mate Hands, or God as far as you're concerned, and I've got just the job for you... bitch.

Sure, it's funny in a pathetic way (the tagged on ineffective "bitch" is a big lol for me), but he ignores the disrespect Pete and Wee John give him and targets the most feminine one in the room and tosses in a "bitch" for good measure. In the end, Izzy tries to shame Lucius for being a "seductress," and it backfires as Lucius easily makes a fool of him. Izzy used the gendered insults ("bitch", "seductress", whatever that Oh Daddy thing was) as a power move, and it failed.

The next episode, he's calling Stede Ed's "pet" since they're developing a healthy friendship, and he makes sure to bring up Ed's past words re: pets that Ed is now "weak," what is a horrible, horrible thing.

This derision against the soft/weak/femme culminates in the S1 finale with Izzy's threats against Ed.

Izzy: I'm going to speak plainly. Ed: Wonderful. You know we share our thoughts on this ship. Izzy: I should've let the English kill you. This, whatever it is that you've become, is a fate worse than death. Ed: Well, I am still Blackbeard, so. Izzy: No. This, this is Blackbeard. Not some namby-pamby in a silk gown pining for his boyfriend.

(This show is awesome. The Blackbeard caricature from 1x4 has no face, but the one in 1x10 has a face and a lighthouse beside him.) Anyway, Ed is showing human emotions at having lost love, so Ed is ruined in Izzy's eyes. As mentioned above, Pete at this time was supportive of Ed (to the extent he can give), but his character mirror buddy is doing the opposite.

The beginning of this outburst feeds into the theme that will keep coming up with how deceptive and self serving Izzy is: the English were there because Izzy called them on Ed and his boyfriend. Izzy was already in the process of punishing Ed for being "weak" and having a "pet," and he thought Ed should have been punished far more harshly because he didn't immediately behave how Izzy wanted him to. The ship and crew weren't in danger from Ed and Stede sailing the seas happily, but they were in danger from Izzy. "Let the English," like he was a protector instead of the one that led them to The Revenge in the first place.

In this mocking, Izzy also continues with the derisive language. "Namby-pamby" by itself isn't a crime, but it is the same loaded language that Izzy used throughout the season, and "pining for his boyfriend" is said in a cruel mockery of the deep heartbreak Ed was going through. Ed was mourning the loss of an entire life he wanted, not the loss of a silly puppet he could scamper through meadows with when the mood struck. Izzy minimized these deep emotions so he could keep his control.

Izzy and Pete both began the season as angry against the softness, the weakness, that Stede was bringing into their worlds, but Pete dropped it much more quickly, while Izzy doubled down to the extreme. Pete got the soft affection confession, while Izzy angrily lashed out at someone having soft affection at all.

I should add as the last Pete and Izzy parallel that Izzy did also have his "fancy boy" moment in 2x6, but it felt more like a farewell for Con O'Neill than something that was organic or meaningful around Izzy. It's a parallel nontheless!

This is continued in Part 2!

Preview: They both wanted Stede dead at certain points! They both have a thing for the Legend of Blackbeard! They both are terrible pirates! Tune in next time. Same bat time, same bath channel!

Series: Part 1, Part 2, Buttons tangent, Part 3, S2 Izzy reaction GIF

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iamadequate1 · 4 months

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Black Pete vs Izzy (Pt 3)

This is a continuing meta where I am listing out similarities (and differences) that I see between Black Pete and Izzy. Again, mind the "Izzy Critical" tag as I do not engage with canyon fanon. If this bothers you.... to block tags: Blog Options > Account > Content you see > Filtered tags.

Part 1, Part 2, Buttons tangent

#4: Pete and Izzy both romanticize the Legend of Blackbeard and overstate their importance to it

Pete is our beginning hype machine in the series for Blackbeard as he introduces the second episode.

Pete: But it was too late. Blackbeard was upon 'em. History's greatest pirate, and my former boss.

Did Pete actually meet Ed before he came aboard The Revenge? Who's to say? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Pete's actual involvement with Blackbeard, we don't know. It was a joke (from Jenkins?) that he was on the crew for just one morning, but we all know how Pete represented it from his story in this beginning hype monologue:

Pete: And then Blackbeard was like... Blackbeard: You saved my hide, Pete. I am forever in your debt. Pete: Just happy to be on the team, Blackbeard. Blackbeard: From this day onward, you'll be known as the Dread Black Pete, my right-hand man.

In his story, he's a one man killing machine! He's so spectacular that Ed instantly promotes him. (Aside: Calico Jack saved Ed's life. Did he get to be right-hand man for a day??)

When Ed first comes aboard The Revenge and any of Pete's lies can easily be uncovered, Pete still keeps talking Blackbeard up. He's committed to the bit.

Pete: I bet he's saying something genius. He's history's most brilliant tactician. I wonder if he'll recognize me. Lucius: You know, I thought he'd be taller.

For Izzy, I'm going to start with his frustrated outburst in 1x4 (after Ed and Stede come on to deck with their Clothes Swap) since it has the most interesting things I can point back to.

The first line I am going to look at:

Izzy: When you tasked me with trackin' that absolute idiot, I did that, no questions asked. And when we traced him to a Spanish warship, I attacked that ship, losin' several of our men by the way.

Seriously, bro? We saw your response to tracking Stede in the previous episode.

Izzy: Captain, we're a few hundred yards out from The Revenge. Ed: Nice. Very good. Love that. Izzy: Honestly, I really don't think this Bonnet is worth your time. Ed: Hm. So, he's a fancy man with a fancy ship, and he travels with a brigade of imbeciles. Do I have that right? Izzy: Yes, I suppose you could put it -- Ed: And he bested you at swordplay. Izzy: They tricked us. It was an ambush. Completely unprofessional. So what's the plan, sir? Do we open fire, or would you rather we just attack them, kill them, thrown them out to the sharks, sir? Ed: Wait 'til they make landfall, then invite them aboard the ship, and Izzy, I want you to handle this personally. Izzy: Oh, Edward, can't I just send the boys? Ed: Mm, no, I want this done right. After all, he is a gentleman. We want to make a good impression. Izzy: Stupid fuckin' Stede Bonnet.

See, "no questions asked" implies just carrying out the order with no questions or offering up some thoughtful and respectful counsel first and then carrying out the order. What Izzy did instead: said the plan wasn't worth doing, asked leading questions to get what he wanted which he knew was the opposite of what Ed wanted, and complained that the task was beneath him. We don't know what happened just before the Spanish ship attack, but I doubt Izzy went quietly.

Moving on to a second point of Izzy's 1x4 speech:

Izzy: For years, I've followed your every whim, I've managed your increasingly erratic moods, and I've massaged this crew when they were worried about your judgment.

We don't know what "every whim" or "erratic moods" mean. With this episode, we know that Ed is bored and wants more out of life (as he says directly to Izzy) and has death ideation (as he says to Izzy that it's something new to try, and as he tells Stede that he's going to pack it all in before knowing that retirement was an option), but we don't know what incidents Izzy is referring to. Since Izzy rarely tells the truth, this can't be taken at face value.

The "massaged this crew" part is very strange, though, since this is what we got in Izzy's first episode (1x2):

Izzy: Captain says follow that ship. Fang: Oh, really, why? Izzy: How should I know? The man's half insane.

"Massaged this crew" certainly is a choice spin on "The man's half insane." Izzy is on some middle management (or rock star manager, if you prefer that spin) Dunning-Kruger curve: low ability, but high confidence. He's not very good at this "massaging this crew" thing, but he doesn't have enough experience to know he sucks at it. This "stressful" job for Blackbeard he's taken on seems to not be needed or is not handled well. Blackbeard's crew was likely on maintenance mode by the time Izzy came along, and Izzy is like modern day middle management, making up tasks to justify his job.

The third piece of this 1x4 speech I want to comment on:

Izzy: I was honored to work for the legendary Blackbeard, the most brilliant sailor I had ever met.

From what I remember, this is the only backstory in onscreen canon we get on Izzy. It is more than we get from the other side characters, and it is interesting. It situates the lens of how to look at his later comments. In particular, Ed was already Blackbeard, already legendary, and already an obviously proven brilliant sailor before Izzy entered the picture. Izzy wasn't there to build the spectacle and reputation of Blackbeard, and he's just a middle manager put in place to maintain it. As Ed says to Stede, there is no challenge, and they're cruising the Caribbean on easy mode.

The fourth and final piece I want to comment on his 1x4 outburst:

Izzy: I'm gonna devise a plan.

As we see later in the episode, the only contribution to the plan he makes is staring dumfounded, contemplating mortality, as Lucius talks about never having seen the world, and more importantly, he's not even in the ending lighthouse scene. The only "plan" we ever see Izzy make in series is sending Calico Jack and the British after Stede, and it seems most likely Spanish Jackie and Chauncey did most of that planning.

He says it confidently, though, and confident misinformation like this is why Minor Prince Ricky could say in 2x8:

Ricky: Can't believe I have an audience with the great Israel Hands. That's absolutely astounding. I've always thought you were underrated. I mean, it's absurd, isn't it? Isn't it? That Blackbeard gets all this praise when you are quite clearly the brains of his operation?

In modern AUs, Ricky is someone's weird uncle at the holiday dinner table who is sharing the totally true "facts" they picked up from Facebook memes. Pete doesn't even believe this stuff.

I mean, 1x5, we see Fang laughing about Izzy the Spewer, and 1x9, we see Izzy is almost immediately mutinied against when left in charge (Remember: the same crew tolerated fumbling newbie Stede for weeks before Pete brought up mutiny and not everyone was interested.) Izzy is terrible at management, and no one on the crews respects him. His only pirate skill seems to be flouncing around the Republic of Pirates and acting like he's menacing (RIP, Geraldo and Steaky, you didn't know better), but he thinks he's indispensable to the most brilliant sailor he'd ever met. I honestly think 1x6 is projection because I think it's Izzy that Ed's keeping around as a pet.

But on Izzy and Blackbeard (from 1x9)...

Izzy: This, this is Blackbeard. Not some namby-pamby in a silk gown pining for his boyfriend. Ed: Choose your next words wisely, dog. Izzy: There he is... Blackbeard is my captain. I serve Blackbeard. Not Edward.

Look! Izzy's captain is Blackbeard! Blackbeard is who was already a thing when Izzy came along! Remember:

Izzy: I was honored to work for the legendary Blackbeard, the most brilliant sailor I had ever met.

Meanwhile, in 2x8...

Izzy: I fed your darkness... Blackbeard. For years, I egged him on, even though I knew you'd outgrown him, but the truth is... Ed: Hey... Izzy: I needed him. Blackbeard... it was us. You, me.

Then he peaces out before he can be corrected. What is this "us" nonsense? Izzy, you brought nothing to the table, and Blackbeard was already a thing before you came along because...

Izzy: I was honored to work for the legendary Blackbeard, the most brilliant sailor I had ever met.

Izzy coming in late is reinforced by Calico Jack in 1x8. At the beginning breakfast with Ed, Stede, and Jack:

Stede: Hornigold, yes, yes. Who's Hornigold? Ed: That's where me and Jack first met, on Hornigold's ship, where we first became outlaws.

At Stede and Jack's pee off:

Jack: Yeah, we got a lot in common, me and him. In lots of ways, we're the same man. So, what's goin' on between you two? You buggerin' each other or what? Stede: Don't know what you're talking about. Jack: Nothin' to be ashamed of. Anything goes at sea. God knows, Blackie and I have had our dalliances. Oh, I'm sorry. Did I hit a nerve? Stede: No. Ed's past is Ed's business, and I respect that. Jack: "Ed." Blackie I knew woulda snapped your neck for callin' him that. Stede: Well, perhaps he's not the Blackie you knew. Jack: And maybe you don't know him at all.

Where does Ed pick up these tailcoat riding losers? Jack "we're the same man" Rackham and Izzy "Blackbeard, it was us" Hands. Yeah, OK. Point of this snippet is certainly-a-choice nickname of "Blackie" that Jack is using, which makes the "Blackbeard" name seem to be from very early days.

At the end of the episode:

Jack: The old Blackbeard woulda seen me comin' a mile away. No, Izzy Hands sent me.

Again, Jack talks about "Blackbeard" as someone from the early days, "Blackie I knew", "the old Blackbeard", and all, the days from when they first became outlaws. The standout here is that Jack says Izzy's full name: Izzy Hands. This is way too formal, and points to Izzy not being around in the old days with "the old Blackbeard." If there were more familiarity there, Jack would have just said "Izzy." Jack knew the beginning days of Blackbeard, and again, back to Izzy's comment, Izzy came in after the development of Blackbeard, and there is no "Blackbeard, it was us."

So, looking more at bland S2 Izzy is strange. During Ed's attempt to get Izzy to kill him in 2x2:

Izzy: Ohh, ohh, you scared, Eddie? Too s- too scared to do it yourself, eh? Go on, clean up your own fuckin' mess. I'm not doin' it. I've been doin' it all my fuckin' life.

"All my ... life"? What? Izzy, you're older than Ed, and you came to him after Ed was a captain with a well established Blackbeard persona. Did his life begin when he joined the QAR? We also see the bulk of Izzy's use to Ed: doing the crap Ed didn't want to do, as a middle manager should. Also, I still think Izzy is Ed's pet. (See, I'm not entertaining any type of S2 retcon excuses because Izzy being a liar who overinflates his importance is just a continuing character trait.)

But it gets stranger. In 2x1:

Izzy: Who am I to you? Ed: What? Izzy: We've worked together for years. You know me better than anyone has ever known me, and I dare say the same is true for me about you.

Why does he think he knows Ed at all? The world may never know. In 2x3, he hobbles in on Stede, bringing the ghost of Calico "and maybe you don't know him at all" Jack with him:

Stede: What'd you do with him? I know he wouldn't have left by choice Izzy: I know you think you understand him -- Stede: He was either going to watch the world burn or die trying, so which was it?

Perhaps he's not the Blackbeard you know, Izzy?

I've been avoiding dipping into the 90s scifi nerd in me, but I can take it no more since this speech is perfect in this context ("the ship" being the Blackbeard legend -- Izzy is still responsible for all the dumb crap he does on his own).

Kryten: The mind-probe was created to detect guilt. Yet, in the case of Arnold Judas Rimmer, the guilt it detected attaches to no crime. He held a position of little or no importance on Red Dwarf. (...) Yet he could never come to terms with a lifetime of underachievement. His absurdly inflated ego would never permit it. He's like the security guard on the front gate who considers himself head of the corporation. (...) An incompetent vending machine repairman with a Napoleon complex who commanded as much respect and affection from his fellow crew members as Long John Silver's parrot. (...) He is only guilty of being Arnold J. Rimmer. That is his crime. That is also his punishment. - Red Dwarf, Series 4, Episode 3, "Justice", end of scene here

Pete just posed himself as Blackbeard's right-hand man, but Izzy posed himself as the legend of Blackbeard himself. What?? See, again, Pete does A Thing, and Izzy takes the A Thing to an extreme.

Also, lord, Izzy is dull in S2. I'm so happy that S2 Pete is still funny and got to be happy. 🥰

To be continued in Part 4!

Preview of coming up: They both are terrible pirates! But they want to be captains anyway! They're both also compulsive liars! Stede pets them on the head like children and says "yes, dear" anyway!

Series: Part 1, Part 2, Buttons tangent, Part 3, S2 Izzy reaction GIF

#our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd meta #black pete #izzy hands #izzy critical #it's just canon #black pete and izzy comparison #cw: calico jack

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