At first I thought the bathtub scene is the one where Stede breaks his rule and reaches for Ed unasked. But then I saw Ed moved first, curled his whole body toward Stede; and only then does Stede touch him, just the tips of his fingers to a sad shoulder; and Ed closes the distance and lays his cheek on his hand. He might not have used words, but he was asking for him.
Even in the beard-tending scene he waits to be asked, and when he takes Ed’s silk he doesn’t touch him. Even when he’s kissed, he waits to reach out until Ed cradles him first, and he withdraws so fast! He only gazes. Is that inherent to their personalities? Or did someone teach him that reaching out uninvited ends badly?
i feel like that sort of thing is always going to be, in part, decided by personality. like, two people with the similar trauma won’t always handle it the same, yeah? and in this case…i think it’s definitely him handling trauma in his own way.
he’s someone who’s been ostracized his whole life, and a lot of that derision he experienced was specifically homophobic. it’s. not that much of a stretch to assume he’s learned to fear/suppress his own desires for intimacy & physical contact, especially with other men, for the sake of survival.
plus he’s just…not great at high pressure social situations, which would be like. most social situations when you’re mingling with high society. and it’s really hard to know when it’s appropriate to touch someone if you can’t read a room. coming off as generally kind of reserved would probably be less of a detriment to him & his family’s reputation than being overly-familiar with the wrong person.
Yes that all tracks. And then that makes me wonder if there’s a broader cultural difference? The upper crust British culture seems far more hands off than Māori culture. And is part of it because Ed’s mother was present and at least somewhat nurturing, while Stede’s mother seems to have been completely absent? I wonder when was the last time he was touched tenderly. I wonder if he feels he knows how. Stede was raised in boarding, with no one there to care for him; Ed seems to have been home until the tragedy.
Anyway your tags got me in the gut.
Ed knows how to help him!! in ways she never could!!
@hebelongstothestars THANK YOU that’s a very painfully relevant part of the bullying
@eightdaysuntiltheapocalypseiguess I think so too. Man, that hurts. But then to see him step up and offer to be chivalrous for Ed, to defend him, so he doesn’t have to defend himself—the way he straightens up and orders him to stand down! How sure and steady he is! And the way Ed accepts it—calms immediately and looks shyly, deeply at him—it’s the same expression he gives him under the moon, the very vulnerable one. I don’t think anyone’s ever trusted Stede to defend them before, or offered chivalry to Ed; that must have felt electric to them both.
@magniloquent-raven oooh you’re right. I missed that. I feel like “passive” is also how I’d describe Stede up until he goes for piracy, too. I wonder if he felt like passivity was his only model for dignity or at least decency. If he wouldn’t be a bully like his father, he’d have to be dutiful and peaceful and disengaged like his mother—as long as he was living in their world. He’d have to deny his misery and his dreams. But if he could step into the world of his pirate stories—if he could make that real—then suddenly he could recreate himself as the hero; the one who says something worth saying, who deals out challenges and praise, who calls a bully an asshole and defends who he loves.
And then of course when he tries to return to his father’s world he can’t stay passive any more; he can’t stomach getting through conflict with Mary by conceding and deflecting and avoiding, although he tries; he’s too much in the habit of being a real person, now. And so is she. Him saying “I think I’ve solved it” to her after they’ve had it all out—and her accepting it, allowing him to set them free—tells me he’d become a “real boy” there at home too; he was ready to name what was needed, to trust his capabilities, to step up and fight for both their separate happinesses. He owned himself at last.
