#why not let Izzy sail off with the Revenge and its crew and have Stede and Ed stay behind? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

canonizzyhours · 5 months

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Re: #49, #53, and probably a lot more.

Making Izzys Development Less of a Shock:

Izzy is protective of his crew and he doesn't see the Revenge crew as his until season 2. When Jim and Frenchie are crew, he protects them as well. I dont think he had a redemption arc, that shift mixed with the "bottle it up" logic of characters like Frenchie and the "we dont get apologies" logic of characters like Archie means they were comfortable enough with him to trauma bond.

Revenge Crew: when asked in s1 ep 4, Izzy tells Ed the plan is to treat the Revenge crew like every other ship they have taken by making them fix the ship and then killing them. He also tells the crew they dont get food when they have been invaded. So from his pov this is a normal day with normal-ish captives. We are never given reason to believe Ed ever tells him otherwise.

Blackbeard Crew: Our only look into how the Blackbeard crew see him comes from Fang and Ivan. In s1 ep2, we hear Ivan tell Fang he should tell Izzy he doesnt like it when Izzy pulls his beard, implying Ivan at least thinks that would be safe to do and maybe even result in it not happening again. In ep 4, Izzy is yelling at Ed about the 7 men they lost saving Stede. In ep5, we see Fang panic when he thinks Ed is about to catch him slacking off and letting Lucius sketch him, but when he finds out its Izzy he relaxes. In ep6, they both go to Izzy to question why they havent followed protocol and killed everyone yet. This shows a fairly open relationship with their first mate. From what we see, they are comfortable being honest with him and trust him enough to question plans.

He is a dick when he takes over as captain, but the tasks he has the Revenge crew doing seem to be sailing related and we dont see him punish anyone until Wee John disrespects him. Was it good and was he right? No. But the punishment isnt violent, he seems to be trying to force them into being "proper" pirates. Then he strands them on that island, but they were rescued and after seeing the trauma crew I'm guessing they were less angry about being stranded. It's also possible they blame Ed for that.

In season 2, Izzy is back to being the go between for Ed and the BB crew. Jim and Frenchie are part of his crew now and he isnt pretending to be captain, so hes less of a dick and more of a buffer from Blackbeard. They have noticed that Ed is taking his toes, but they all seem relatively unharmed physically, creating the beginnings of a trauma bond. They also feel comfortable enough with him to question orders. Then when Ed starts pointing a gun at them, Izzy says something to get the gun pointed at himself instead of them or Ed himself. Jim's "hes our dick" explanation also implies they know everything is better when the crew cares about eachother.

As soon as Izzy is seemingly out of the picture, Ed does everything he can to ensure they will all die in that storm. And tries to make Jim and Archie to fight to the death. But Izzy steps in again and stops Ed. This would strengthen the trauma bond even more.

From what I can tell, Jim, Frenchie, Archie, and Fang and also Lucius have been through to much to be bothered by someone being a dick. Lucius can still be snarky, but he has bigger problems. The BB crew watched Izzy take a bullet and get toes cut off voluntarily and continue to stand between them and Blackbeard.

The rest of the Revenge crew either have someone they love on that ship or, frankly, dont really care about Izzy. And Izzy hits rock bottom and accepts that this is his new crew, theoretically resulting in him treating them a bit better.

I assume the New Unicorn note is the BB crews idea. The rest just want the trauma group to calm down a bit so I can see them agreeing to any team building activity if it helps the others build trust again. When we see the leg being made Jim is covered in gold paint, Fang and Frenchie are putting the last nail in.

TLDR: you dont see a redemption arc because he didnt get one. It's just the perfect storm of him being slightly less of a dick, a few key characters trauma bonding with him, and the rest not really caring about him or getting screen time. From his side they are crew now so hes less of a dick.

I'm sorry if this reads like headcanons, I tried to put episodes in to explain but it's all from my memory and it is very late. I hope it helps make the beginning of s2 less of a shock for someone.

#59.

related posts: #53, #49

#canonizzyhours #ofmd #izzy hands

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ladyluscinia · 2 years

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I've been thinking about whether Izzy is manipulative - yes and no, still pondering - and that led to how Izzy interacts with others, and then trying to suss out how Izzy functioned as a First Mate at all. So thoughts I've had:

First and foremost, in command Izzy functions as part of the Edward-and-Izzy unit (aka Blackbeard). He's not equipped to function on his own, but neither is Edward. The difference is that Edward can hide that fact for longer because he's the one with the instant charisma whose issues trip him up later, while Izzy cannot take control of a situation for the life of him but probably doesn't suck once he has it and a clear goal. This is, I think, the root of why Izzy struggles so much on the Revenge. Edward effectively abdicates his role as unquestioned top of the hierarchy, which cuts Izzy off from the source of his authority.

And while Edward can keep riding charisma / the Blackbeard mythos / his relationship with Stede to stay on top anyway, Izzy is left to fend for himself in his personal hell.

Izzy is small, and loud, and mean. He wants people to do shit because he tells them to and he knows what he's doing, but he has zero patience to actually persuade people of this. He dresses like a goth businessman which is very professional and also really not that scary. No badass scars or huge visible tattoos. His only real ability to enforce his will is with a sword - usually overkill and counterproductive - or with the threat of punishment - toothless against Stede's crew because they know the Captain won't back him.

Basically he needs people to respect him, but they are immediately primed not to due to all his Izzy-ness, and the very laidback and consequence free situation in the show deprives him of any method of proving his worth. (Worth he hasn't had to prove in fucking forever because he's fucking Izzy Hands, right hand man to Blackbeard!)

So what would Izzy be like in a different situation? Like aboard the Queen Anne?

Well Izzy is kind of a shit manager of people no matter what, but I think an established hierarchy would help him a lot. No one is going to love Izzy, but if they have to obey him, then they are more or less forced to observe that he's a dick who knows what he's doing instead of just a dick. Then suddenly there's a reason to put up with him. Also in a stricter hierarchy he probably wouldn't have to directly manage or interact with everyone. People have pointed out that Izzy doesn't do work himself, but "delegator of tasks" is a job of its own once the sphere is big enough. And often the overall delegator has smaller "team lead" style workers below him - people who do work but also can be in charge of making sure a bigger task gets done.

Izzy probably didn't interact with the base labor force on the Queen Anne beyond a knowledge of who's who. He'd just know a small group of guys he considered competent and reliable, and then assign everyone else to them. After all, Izzy doesn't have to personally check every sail stitch. He just needs to know William won't let anybody else on sail duty fuck up, and be satisfied with what he sees when he passes by.

And Izzy is a lot nicer when he doesn't think people are fucking up!

In episode 4, the main notably not-dickish interaction is when Buttons spots the Spanish and shows them to Izzy (aka does his job). Izzy gets pissed but doesn't take it out on Buttons at all. Just runs to tell Edward because that's the chain of command. Buttons -> Izzy -> Edward. This is because Izzy, for all his dickishness, is not a sadist (and really good that he's not, because it's the main thing keeping his management style functional). He doesn't punish people for the sake of punishing them or for shit they can't control. Still not great at positive reinforcement, but you can absolutely have a "good" working relationship with a boss who ignores you as long as you do what you're supposed to.

(And now we're back to Edward-and-Izzy as a unit, because Edward is great for the morale boosting that Izzy can't provide, and Izzy can just work on keeping Edward happy and the crew neutral but functioning when he isn't. Still not easy, but at least possible for him to succeed at.)

This theory is also somewhat backed up by Fang and Ivan, who seem to fall in Izzy's category of "competent and reliable" crew. Other than yanking on Fang's beard - which was a deliberate reminder of hierarchy and light punishment for questioning Edward - he seems to have great faith they will do what they are told without micromanaging and he effectively promotes them to the task of managing Stede's crew in the absence of clear leaders. Unfortunately, Fang and Ivan both fall into the muppetverse and simultaneously realize Edward won't enforce Izzy's authority on them either. They don't seem to hate Izzy, but they aren't inclined to defend him. Not a great trait in the only muscle he has to lean on.

In the end, I can see how Izzy's whole deal would work in a system that he was already integrated into. If you are a new sailor on Blackbeard's crew then the First Mate is a dick, yeah, but he doesn't talk to you. The Captain trusts him implicitly, everyone knows better than to openly disrespect him, and the senior crew who you report to have an established professional rapport with him. And then he leads a raiding party and you go "Oh shit this guy is so good at murder" right before he pays you a lot of money.

Whereas if you are Lucius, this small angry man follows Blackbeard onto your ship to rescue your Captain out of nowhere, spends a day getting increasingly anxious as his Captain ignores him and really shatters the terrifying myth of Blackbeard, moves onto your ship but isn't really given any authority over you, and then yells a bunch. He can kill people, yeah, but you don't have any particular knowledge of or respect for that skill, and you have no reason to think he's allowed to kill you. He's just a dick trying to force you to respect him, and you are Lucius and live to be a bitch right back.

No wonder Izzy just wants to go home.

#our flag means death #izzy also probably functions really well as edward's representative for similar reasons - everyone respects him from the start #he can go bitch about spanish jackie's place but when they sit down they talk as *equals*#izzy is assumed to have the authority of blackbeard behind him and treated accordingly #and once that happens he seems to be pretty good at negotiating deals and such #breaking news: tiny man who struggles to be intimidating in hypermasculine job has massive chip on his shoulder over perceived disrespect #izzy hands ofmd #my meta #blackbeard ofmd #blackbeard's ship #fang ofmd #ivan ofmd #ladyluscinia #ofmd meta

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