#i almost yeeted myself into the sun
you know how there’s this whole thing in golden age romcom 1999 hit the runaway bride about how the julia roberts character likes her eggs? when she’s with one guy, she likes them over-easy, same as him. when she’s with the next guy, she likes them scrambled, same as him. with the next guy, in an omelette, same as him. and in the end, she can’t marry richard gere because she still doesn’t knowhowshe likes her eggs. it’s not until she’s gone off on her own for a bit and built her own life and discovered how she likes her eggs without anybody else’s influence that she can finally allow richard gere back into her life with hope for a real future.
what i’m saying is this. calico jack takes his eggs scrambled. izzy takes his eggs hard-boiled. stede takes his eggs over-easy.
not canonically of course, what i mean is, each of these men in ed’s life have different views and expectations of who ed is, and ed is so desperate for love and acceptance that he is willing to turn himself inside out to meet this expectations. calico jack wants a party; ed will party. izzy wants fearsome; ed will cut off his toes. stede wants a softie who will talk it through with the crew; ed will talk it through with the crew.
ed leaves with jack because he knows jack does this to him, and he knows jack went too far, and he knows he allowed jack to have enough power and control over him that he allowed jack to go too far. ed concocts terrible plans with izzy in order to try and control the power izzy wields over ed - by keeping up with him, instead of letting him take control. ed allows izzy to duel with stede even though, under command, izzy should have stood down. stede is a gentleman and a silly adventurer, and ed tries to become a gentleman and a silly adventurer.
these are all different theses about who Edward Teach can be. all suggestions. even stede, who we often speak about as being really good for ed and allowing him to be who he wants - it’s impossible to ignore that on some level ed is also trying to form himself around what stede wants him to be. this is imo most obvious in ep 10 where ed virtually hangs himself in front of his own crew by erasing the fear they have and thereby abdicating any power. izzy’s threat is the most upfront demonstration of this, but right after that we hear the crew on deck shouting for eddie to come give them another song. ed has no control. he has no respect. izzy’s a dick throughout, but his threats before were always to leave – now he’s threatening ed himself. ed has put himself in danger trying to be what he thought stede wanted.
so, okay. those are the theses. then we get ep10 dark ed. this is the antithesis. this isn’t who anybody wants. he’s not a fun time. he’s not a fearsome pirate. he’s not soft. he’s not weak, and he will cut any weakness out. he is the kraken.
what we need from the narrative now is the synthesis. the discovery, for ed, of what ed really wants. how does he take his eggs.
ed can’t do this as dark ed. he has to come out of dark ed in order to remember the taste of eggs. he can’t do this as any of the standard theses either, because then he just ends up mirroring whoever has the most power of him at any moment, including stede. he can’t do this as the boy who wanted red silk or who killed his own father. he can’t do this as a king’s privateer. he can’t do this as anybody but himself.
what i’m saying is: i am so fuckin ready for ed to have the pirate version of his eat pray love self-discovery journey off alone with no one who knows him so he can decide for himself how he likes his eggs, and then when he and stede meet again–he’ll be ready.
in conversation about this with the excellent good beans @kai-art and @leilakalomi about how ed really does seem to be the most himself with stede, and i am here to add:
when ed is with stede, stede asks. SO many questions. do you fancy a fine fabric? have you ever considered retirement? everything all right? i couldn’t help but notice. May I?
he doesn’t ask all the time. but he spends a lot of time sort of sussing ed out, trying to put into words what he observes about ed and asking for a confirmation, that sort of thing. and ed is responsive for a lot of it! he has room with stede to be himself - he will threaten, for example, the french officers with no problem, he will be kind of a dick about the treasure hunting and protecting his reputation, he will tell ghost stories, he will let stede see him vulnerable in the bathtub scene.
it’s only after stede leaves that ed really veers hard into the thesis of what he thinks stede wants. it’s only after stede leaves that ed completely abandons his leathers for stede’s clothes and stede’s marmalade and stede’s comfy cushions and blankets. he does his little performance, he asks to be called edward.
stede never rejects blackbeard. blackbeard is, for stede, always a part of ed.
but in the absence of stede, and in the wake of stede’s apparent rejection, ed leans in hard and dramatic to what he believes is stede’s ideal. worth noting that even stede doesn’t live up to stede’s ideals - he never talks it through as a crew! he’s not all soft all the time (in fact stede is kind of an ass lmao) and when stede and ed are together, he doesn’t ask ed to be.
so when i talk about stede’s thesis of what ed can be, there is a divide also between how stede actually treats ed in the show and what ed thinks stede wants in the show, and i think that divide is where stede’s thesis, this ep 10 softie, lives. given the cyclical nature of things, i also think that divide is probably where ed’s final synthesis lives, but without the pressure and expectation of what ed believes stede wants him to be.
in the end i think it comes down to: stede needs to want ed to be ed, just himself, and i don’t think stede is 100% of the way there yet given stede’s upset in ep 9 over his perceived ruin of ed (that’s another post). and ed needs to realize he can’t be anybody other than who he actually is.
and in all that, there has to be synthesis. they’re setting ed up to take bits of everyone he is and everything he can be and to finally decide for himself, instead of for anybody else.
