it’s interesting how both bridgertonandour flag means death approach the aristocracy and high society with almost exactly the same concept: “this is a space full of unspoken social contracts bound by unwritten rules of ‘correct’ behaviour, forged through traditions you will never understand, and if you deviate from it in any way, you will be socially punished”.
andbridgerton whole-heartedly markets this as the central premise for a ~*~romantic escapist fantasy~*~, where the fantasy is the fulfillment of those contracts through successfully navigating that society – sure, you can break rules to “follow your heart” but the key aspect of that escapism is still working to empower yourself within those social constructs, and within socially acceptable parameters of sexuality and gender expression.
meanwhile,our flag frames it as a space that systemically sets you up for trauma – where the punishment is a form of interpersonal violence, where the rules are a framework for abuse of power, where the victory is when you either defy it, defeat it, or escape from it. mary thrives in her widowhood, stede is completely freedwhen he fakes his death, and highest catharsis in episode 5 isn’t ed successfully navigating the social rules of the dinner party but when stede burns it to the ground. it’s the acknowledgement that these rules are made by power and are used as enforcementsofpower and to defy it is to take that power for yourself.
like. these two shows are, on a base-level, similar premises: historically inaccurate romance-centred lighthearted shows, but it truly demonstrates how the difference between queer-centric and straight-centric romance media is a ravine.
Ed has this annoyingly relatable tendency to swing SO overly hard in whichever direction he’s nudged. They’re captured and they could apparently very easily simply walk away on foot from the Academy with no consequences but Ed won’t even entertain it he’s just full on “there is no escape :) :) i’m a professional folder now :)” Then he kisses Stede ONCE and in practically the same breath he’s asking him to assume new identities and run away to CHINA. Not go back to the ship together, not even start a new life in like, Canada. Has to pick the most extreme far off destination he can think of. He doesn’t even take a beat to plan further, he immediately runs off the beach to get started and wants to leave TONIGHT. Poor guy sets himself up for failure at the docks because now he’s not just lost Stede, he’s lost this entire new life he’s constructed all in his head because he’s got so far ahead of himself.
He does it in his break up too like he puts on Stede’s robe for comfort and all of a sudden he needs to channel this exaggerated version of the parts of Stede’s personality that he loves or wishes he could have. Then the MOMENT Izzy tells him he wants Blackbeard back Ed just fully kills a man, severs toes, and rebrands himself to be the most evil version of himself yet. And by doing these things he just breaks his own heart over and over again because he’s constantly mourning these false identities and fantasies that he builds up in his head and has to abandon.
All or nothing thinking makes you feel like such a failure because nothing in life is all or nothing, including the ability to stop thinking about things as all or nothing, so it’s hard to even begin to start approaching things with caution or moderation because if you fuck up even once well then that’s it, I’m a lost cause I won’t even try to regulate myself any more and i’ll just make giving up & getting my hopes unrealistically up my full time job. We make (deserved) jokes about Edward “Guess I’ll Die” Teach but that’s exactly what this kind of behaviour is: I’m bored with my life so maybe I’ll just DIE ABOUT IT like jesus dude maybe there’s something in between “trying dying” and trying to become a completely new and different person either by literally assuming a new identity or metaphorically through intrinsically weaving his sense of self in with Stede’s companionship.
I struggle with this so much like i make the most wild impulsive dramatic life decisions sometimes because they feel like the easy solutions to big problems, and measured responses are boring, and boredom is intolerable.
Stede has the exact same problem I just think he’s at a different stage of learning how to break this pattern. He seems much more willing to bounce his ideas and impulses off of other people which can give you a lot of valuable outside perspective. He still makes dramatic unilateral decisions like running away to become a pirate and then running back home, but by the end of the latter I think he’s realized that there’s always a third option. I guess the lesson when you find yourself between a rock and a hard place of 2 extreme options is to remember (ironically) that there IS always an escape.
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.
real talk everyone: i know that for many of us, engaging with the characters of Our Flag Means Death through the lens of mental illness/neurodivergence allows us to explore not only ourselves (seeing the self in the other aka the fictional character) but also explore how characters we love can be like us, but especially for white fans, we need to talk about the appropriate ways to do this with characters of color, especially Edward ‘Blackbeard’ Teach.
there is NOTHING WRONG with interpreting Ed as a neurodivergent character. That is NOT what this post is about.
What it is about is the way that fans, particularly white fans, have been approaching their discussions of Ed and potential neurodivergence in a way that infantilizes and lessens him as a character by virtue of missing what he DOES in favor of listening to how other (white) characters talk ABOUT him
See, there’s this underlying idea that something is “wrong” with Ed. That he’s unstable, that he’s half-insane, that he’s a shadow of himself who needs Izzy or Stede to manage him, that he needs to be fixed, that he’s always on the verge of a breakdown - and I understand that these ideas are coming from a sympathetic and loving place, but they are 1) not accurate to what we see in the show and 2) really infantilizing to Ed as a grown man of color
so firstly, the elephant in the room:
Izzy is the character who spends the most time questioning Ed’s sanity and stability and we have to understand that Izzy is incorrect. Izzy is basing his judgements on the fact that Ed’s behavior does not make sense within Izzy’s worldview, not within the actual realms of reality.
What we see with Edward is a person who is performing at the highest peak of his professional field, with the respect of essentially all of his peers and enemies, with nowhere else to climb, and he is bored. We see that he has unfulfilled emotional needs in terms of wanting companionship, tenderness, and trusting relationships with others. We see that he finds his work an endless, boring grind without life or passion, and that the natural conclusion to that profession is death in the line or duty or in capture by the enemy.
In this context, Ed’s passive suicidal ideation makes perfect sense. His lack of interest in continuing his work makes perfect sense. He is not inexplicable, he is essentially a case study in what happens when a person is severely socially isolated and married to their unfulfilling job that they hate. Ed’s a bit of an adrenaline junkie and all the adrenaline has gone out of his work. He is seeking novelty and interest to respark his old passions.
This is deemed evidence of Ed being “half-insane” by Izzy because it fundamentally opposes Izzy’s own needs and worldview, and thus seems inexplicably incorrect. Izzy enjoys the fact that they don’t have to fight, that the surrenders are easy, that the looting takes little effort. To him, these are all signs of their great success, which makes Ed’s boredom a “mood” that he has to manage rather than a clash of needs and expectations.
Ed wants to meet a new person who’s different and unusual. This, to him, is a worthwhile pursuit, because piracy is boring and he’s already successful at it. To Izzy, it’s a nonsensical waste of time.
Ed is not actually unstable for feeling this way. He’s just not having his intellectual and emotional needs met by his environment, so he’s checking out of the things that bore and depress him. Thinking otherwise is generally just a failure to contextualize his attitude - if you think of Ed as a successful business owner with no challenges in his field, you’d see that he’s essentially repeating the same boring day in the office over and over, with no way out.
After all, retirement for a pirate is death. And Ed doesn’t even have the language to describe retirement until he meets Stede. So he just knows he wants things to change, or end, and death is the only end he can know to anticipate at this point in his life.
Ed also demonstrates that despite his boredom and depression, he’s perfectly capable of managing his day to day life. In Episode Four he makes astute observations of the world around him (correctly gauging the conditions of the clouds and the sea to determine when fog will occur), properly estimates when the Spanish should be closing in on their location, accurately assess a means of keeping track of time for his endeavor, and works with a partner to develop a back up plan. All while managing the emotions of his second in command, who’s flipping out and navigating meeting a new person he’s fascinated by.
If Ed were half as unstable as some posts postulate (or as Izzy assumes), then he wouldn’t be capable of all of this. Again, Izzy thinks that Ed is insane because he’s not in on Ed’s inner workings. He doesn’t know that Ed has a plan, he doesn’t understand that Ed wants to explore a different life (because Izzy can’t imagine a life outside of piracy), and he doesn’t understand why Ed sees anything of value in Stede. Ergo, he thinks Ed must be losing it.
But again, the story shows that Ed isn’t losing it at all, he’s just having fun. He doesn’t need to be managed, he’s managing himself just fine. He’s just not managing himself in a way that his coworkers are expecting.
Assuming otherwise is to disregard that he’s clearly still highly cognizant of the world around him and fully capable of interacting and engaging with it.
The bathtub scene is another area I’ve seen people bring up to support this, and I’ll be frank, it baffles me. The bathtub scene is not written as though this is a common occurrence in the life of Edward Teach. it’s framed as a PTSD flashback brought on by the trigger of the Kraken and the stress of Ed feeling as though he needs to commit his second ever murder, of a man he doesn’t even want to kill. The breakdown isn’t a regular occurrence, its a lowering of walls after a frightening reminder of what Ed clearly sees as his greatest sin - murdering his own father.
It’s just. I don’t know man, that’s not his every day. We learn that Ed takes precautions to ensure he doesn’t have to kill, and that he’s avoided that all these years. This breakdown is essentially because he’s revisiting that trauma again in a way that directly opposes the conditions of his original traumatizing incident. Where Ed murdered his father to defend himself and his mother from a terrifying aggressor, here he would be killing his friend who he has already started falling for and who treats him kindly for nothing more than selfish personal benefit (and peer pressure).
These are not every day circumstances in the life of Edward Teach.
And finally, his breakdown at the end of the series - Blanket Fort Ed is literally just going through the motions of a break up. He’s crying in the club (blanket fort) of comfort, wearing his exes clothes because they’re more comfortable than his, eating tons of marmalade, and writing bad, sad poetry. This is literally just Been Unexpectedly Dumped 101. That gets turned up to 11 though after Izzy confronts him and he hears the sound of the crew calling for him. Izzy has put Ed in a mindset where he must again hold doubt and mistrust for the people around him in his heart (thus interpreting the crews calls for Eddie to sing them a song as mockery) while at the same time making it clear that he’s worthless as an individual.
It’s a direct attack on his self-esteem, and his newfound sense of having a solid foundation gets ripped from under his feet. He goes on the offense, but now, back in a world that doesn’t satisfy his emotional or psychological needs, and having been made aware that it IS possible to have those needs met, but that HE, Edward Teach, simply isn’t allowed to have them met, he’s now in despair.
But despite all of this! He’s still not incapable of taking care of himself OR in need of a caretaker. We see that he’s still taking care of business, that he’s still active on the crew and directing change, and that he’s capable of planning and executing courses of action.
At no point in the series is Ed in need of a manager. Yes, in some ways, he directs Izzy to act as his hands (especially early on), but that’s more because Izzy’s job is to be his hands than because Ed needs someone to take care of things for him. He’s delegating the boring work he doesn’t want to do to his assistant.
There is a tendency in general to assume that people of color are less capable, less rational, less intelligent than white people. I doubt anyone is thinking of this intentionally when they suggest that Ed relies on Izzy for his day to day care, but that’s kind of what’s implied when it’s implied that Ed can’t handle his daily affairs without any evidence that he’s actually incapable. The assumption that Ed is being corrupted by Stede or led astray or can’t determine for himself what’s best are actually examples of Izzy infantilizing Ed too. Stede gets in on that in Episode 9 as well, when he agrees that he’s ruining Ed instead of acknowledging that Ed is a grown man capable of making his own choices.
Both of the main white men in Ed’s life think him incapable of making choices for himself. The difference is that Stede does it in a moment of trauma, and Izzy kinda does it because he doesn’t understand that other people can have different worldviews without there being a definitive right and wrong answer. There’s a racial element to it that’s absolutely intentional on behalf of the writing team, but that I don’t think is getting picked up by all of the fanbase.
Edward Teach is the man, the myth, the legend. When we talk about him, we have to consider his behavior from the perspective of the man, himself, not the myth or the legend as interpreted by the characters around him. When we write about Ed’s mental health and psychological state, we need to make sure that we’re centering Ed’s own behavior and reasoning and considering what actions he’s taking on screen, not the way he’s interpreted by the people around him.
ok crew, i want to talk about myth and meaning making
(and originally petrified oranges but since i’ve already spent 2 hours of my life going red strings and thumbtacks about how that may actually be a possibility lets change course from steering to port and head starboard instead)
first, when i say myth i’m talking the foundation stories of social groups. religions have foundation myths, but so do governments, nations, companies etc.
“this is who we are, and why we do things the way we do.”
and history is a myth too, albeit one reinforced by governments and scholars. and it usually focuses on people with the resources, power and affluence to order it to be recorded. which gets echoed in how Lucius was ordered to record everything,, except for, you know, mutiny and normal mundane things that have no bearing on Stede and his exploits (there really should have been some inventory done to check the orange supply at some point, like inventory and ship’s logs are actually pretty well recorded if the cargo breakdowns in Black Flags Blue Waters 2018 are anything to go by).
but between massive english illiteracy until very very recently, and the bias of what gets preserved and copied down or thrown out, it’s easy to see how the great man of history model was so easy to perpetuate. we don’t really have examples from anyone BUT the “great men” of history, at least not easily accessible or widely distributed. (museums are trying with the massive document uploads, but this is also what makes Anne Lister’s diary such a treasure for queer history).
if you’ve never heard of Jane Elliott’s blue eyes/brown eyes experience i highly recommend looking it up. in essence, school children’s ability to do timed math flash cards is directly linked to whether their teacher and classmates are telling them they are superior or inferior humans based only on the color of their eyes. (their self esteem also took a massive hit but the flashcards were actually trackable). basically, authority figure and peers say ur bad at ____ enough, u can’t perform at ____, even if you’re actually pretty good at it.
and this applies to friend groups too!
are you a mom friend because you are naturally that category? or because someone has labeled you that and you fill that role for them?
now! party time!
the amount of self-policing and pageantry and snobbery rolling off these rich people. who decided dining required a week of personal tutoring so you don’t get laughed out of the room? brutal. i’m with Ed here, these social customs make no sense and are designed to mark out who is wealthy, idle, and in-the-know from everyone else. as if to say ‘you will never be one of us you can’t even eat properly’.
it further underscores the flashback to Ed’s mom giving the 'people like us don’t get nice things’ speech. she’s parroting what’s been drilled into her until she believes it. now it’s her reality and her child’s too. but something in Ed wants to wonder…
hold that thought a moment.
there’s some awesome meta floating around about how Ed is a genre chameleon, or how his personality changes to fit the people around him. and if you listen, everyone wants to tell him who he is. what it means to be blackbeard. how blackbeard behaves. especially Izzy and CJ. they seem to think they have the difinitive take on who he really is.
and none of these versions have room for nice things as anything beyond something to horde or trade. a prize, but not one u can enjoy. they are constructing overlapping cages of identity for him, when humans are more of a constellation of traits influenced by emotions and circumstances. a galaxy among galaxies, all feedback loops and multidirectional gravities. to stop changing is death.
then there’s Stede. “you wear fine things well,” said so gently and without scorn or sarcasm. is there another option? when you have told yourself that you’re a monster, been told you’re a brilliant seaman by someone who wants a version of you you dislike. when you’re feeling at your worst and someone says something nice to you that actually resonates,,, no wonder it takes his breath away. maybe. just maybe. to be worthy of something fine.
stay with Stede a moment. because he says something late in the series that bears unpacking. “it’s a stupid idea. I only have stupid ideas”
who told him that?
was it his dad? badminton? did he decide it himself after the 300th time someone gave him a weird look when they couldn’t follow his logic? when did he lock himself away into “i only have stupid ideas”?
because Ed never thought so.
just like Stede never thought Ed should be deprived of fine things.
and Stede has never really had friends to tell him who he is to them. he’s had parents, wife, responsibilities. expectations. He has run away from those expectations to try to be the version of himself he wants to be. Stede never figured out how to ask what other people actually want or if their interests can be made to align. Ed may be the first person to visibly and consistently enjoy his company. no wonder he’s willing to overlook a little half-attempted murder.
maybe. just maybe. to be worthy of warmth without the weight of impossible expectations.
to find a little understanding. to just pass the time well.
i think ofmd might be a queer myth we’ve been needing. because it asks what happens when we let the myth blind us to the people in front of us. but even more so what happens when we let their myths blind us to ourselves, our possibilities.
it says:
if you cannot bear the weight of roles assigned by outsiders, there is a place for you. if you cannot live up to ridiculous customs, there is a place for you. if you long for a little comfort, a little adventure, a small section of deck to lay your head when the sea turns rough, there is a place for you. come take a turn at the wheel, at the rigging. there is work to do and all talents are needed. and later i will tell you how a little wooden puppet became a real boy, how a boy became a pirate, how a pirate became a myth, and how a myth was only human after all.
Oh my gosh this is wonderful thank you for writing this. I have been PLAGUED by this show, it’s completely changed something very fundamental in me and I’ve been trying to figure out why.
Recently I was at a queer punk show and I looked around at a room chock full of freaks like me and I was struck by a) how amazing it was to be all together but also b) how fucking rough out there it is to be a freak. How many people (personal friends of mine and people I never got to meet) who weren’t there because they are dead. How much of the overarching society wants us dead because we not only dare to dream that things could be different, but also we prove that they MUST be different. That the world NEEDS to be different, and that the freaks are the ones who can make it fucking happen, just by the sheer power of living differently and welcoming anyone who wants to come along to join us.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about Taika’s commentary about humor being an amazingly powerful tool to fight oppression- that through laughter we can break down so many barriers without really trying because people want to be in the room where all the joy is at.
thank you for your addition!
that sounds a lot like what i felt going to the trans march on Washington in 2019. to know we all have something in common and won’t other each other for it. and a lot of it was mourning too, but also the electricity of the collective demand to exist authentically.
i like where you’re going there too. how humor can take away a system’s teeth, show it for the unnecessary construction it is, but in a way that is disarming and inviting. an invitation to joy.
chekhov’s gun is both a blessing and a curse because i think it’s so heavily over applied to all forms of media when really it was, for the most part, describing a very specific thing (stage design) in a very specific structure (anton chekhov playwright fuckery) and is too often used as a litmus test for how good a narrative is when really it’s just a statement about including things that matter in what you write, regardless of where those things end up having obvious uses (the gun firing in the second act) or not (the gun demonstrates how unsafe an environment the space is without ever needing to be fired). on the other hand appending “chekhov’s” to any element that appears in a story other than a gun is so fucking funny
Me thinking I’m funny: So, in mil-sci-fi, would we call that Chekhov’s gunship?
Izzy Hands is Kylo Ren: Or, An Informal Exploration of Fandom’s Proclivity Towards Minimizing and Sympathizing with White Male Violence
i brought this undertaking upon myself by putting this thought out there (and getting cursed with the knowledge that this take makes izzy/ed reylo) without my full intent to write the post. my being cursed is my own fault, my own cross to bear, my own self made misery. however, i’m going to make this analysis EVERYONE’S problem now because jokes on all of us, i wrote the post.
notes for readers: this meta is just under 6500 words. i have tried to divide it into thematic sections determined by bolded lines. sometimes i will reiterate previous points with expanded discussion because i always have more to say. big thanks to @dragonzair@plotdesignerand@twelvemonkeyswere
so to get the ground work settled: obviously izzy hands is not identical to kylo ren, given that he is not the fallen son of heroes, nor directly a key figure of a fascist empire. however, in the context of our flag means death and its fandom, particularly the portion that favors izzy and takes him at his word without examining the underlying context of his scenes and dynamics with other characters, there is a LOT of similarity between the ways that the two characters enact violence, and in the way the fandom response is geared towards sympathizing with these two characters for said violence while also and minimizing their responsibility for it.
There is so much happening in the notes of this post that I already need to address whoo boy! Thank you for engaging, people, and also, let’s get right into it. I just went ahead and copied the text because I hate screenshots and they make anyone using screenreaders have difficulty anyway, so! responses under cut to avoid clutter dashes. yes i am long-winded. i love to talk. i will be deleting these replies after the response, because i don’t like a cluttered notes section.
