There’s a headcanon that Izzy is from the aristocracy, but I think that’s actual canon.
When Blackbeard asks him to go get Stede, he says he wants Izzy to do it, not the boys, because BB “wants it done right” because Stede is a gentleman. By social rules, you don’t have lower ranked people or servants call on those of equal or higher rank, unless first being invited or introduced. BB has not been invited or met him, but Izzy has met Stede. Social rules say it has to be Izzy–and that’s only appropriate if Izzy is of equal rank, aka a gentleman; I suppose it would work too if we consider BB as royalty in the pirate world, and so Izzy would be a prince, but that doesn’t seem to be how it’s meant to be read. Social rules wouldn’t be referred to at all if that was the case; BB could go himself. Needing to be invited and needing to follow proper rules fits with BB being on the outside of the world of fine things, him not fitting in there or being able to reach that himself, which IS a huge theme.
Izzy also dresses differently than the others, even those of BB’s leather crew. He’s not frippery fancy like the aristocracy, but he’s “properly dressed” instead of looking like a raggedy pirate or a naval officer. Other pirates would not respect frippery, but his two-piece-suit type high ranking servant’s outfit seems to be practical but high end enough that it’s not mocked. He’s really only missing the fancy coat to be “properly dressed”; he has the waistcoat+shirt+cravat, they’re just black as opposed to colored. In the show, it’s black because black is badass and represents emotional repression, but historically black was for mourning, and peasants wore that and darker colors like brown because it hid dirt better, therefore making their clothes last longer–especially formal clothes–because they couldn’t wash their clothes as much (which worked against lighter colors and wore out fabric much faster) and it hid patches and darns better than lighter colors. The revelation that Izzy has a wedding ring in his cravat may point to his black being both mourning and emotional repression. I think we’ll see him in color by the end of the show when he breaks his repressive shell, and stops seeing himself as needing to be under BB, needing to be his servant.
Izzy also knows the rules of dueling and is a stickler for “professionalism”, which only makes sense if he grew up being taught dueling–a pirate would love ambushes and not care about playing fair or by stuffy rules. He also seems to be far more personally resistant to the “anything goes” sexual mores of piracy, which doesn’t fit if he’s from the lower classes because that’s who pirates (and the mass ranks of navy recruits) mostly are, but does fit if he’s upper class and grew up with those “namby pamby” dicks-about-spoons rules.
Omg Izzy Hands is such a little freak I love him. The way he smiled after Ed fucked up his foot. Disgusting, revolting, my little man. I love him. Never get him a therapist. He should be put in a little rat maze and made to do tricks. <<<333
Anyway the last episode ruined me and I will never know peace
The way that when I read this aloud, it gets more insane
honestly thanks. that’s the way it feels so,, thanks!
Omg Izzy Hands is such a little freak I love him. The way he smiled after Ed fucked up his foot. Disgusting, revolting, my little man. I love him. Never get him a therapist. He should be put in a little rat maze and made to do tricks. <<<333
Anyway the last episode ruined me and I will never know peace
I know the joke about Izzy is “human dropped into a muppets movie” but the tragedy is that he’s a queer-coded character from some 1940s or 50s popcorn flick dropped into a pride parade in a floating gayborhood & he flat out has no idea how to deal with it. We learn he’s a great swordsman in the most homoerotic way possible when he uses his skills to cut open a man’s shirt. We see him react more openly and with less inner conflict when Ed slaps him on the back and says “I need you here” than when Ed implies to him, a minute earlier, that he could be a captain. When he’s part of an overtly queer scene where other characters get the romance & he just gets the subtext, Con O'Neill’s body language stands out even more—go back to the scene where Izzy tells Stede that Ed adores him, the way he strokes his fingers down the curtain dividing him from Stede. There is literally no straight explanation for this choice, but there is also no explicit acknowledgement that the character is queer; in a different, older show or movie, that body language would be the acknowledgment. He imbues the character with the looks and pauses that you would see in, like, Ben-Hur or something, where everyone knew a character was gay but nobody could say it out loud. Keep in mind that in the comedies where these characters would exist, the subtextually gay man would sometimes be best friends with a Strong Leading Man who got the girl in the end.
We hear him say outright that there’s no retirement for people like Izzy & Ed, only death, which is itself a hugely loaded analogy next to the title statement “our flag means death” when you consider our history & our use of flags throughout. And Izzy’s so focused on pure survival that he ends up nasty, manipulative, violent—the only way men like him can survive in his mind, or in the genre he’s from, if they don’t have a Strong Leading Man best friend like, say, a Blackbeard to protect him from the narrative. When Ed starts to live in Stede’s world, Izzy is both losing his subtextual boyfriend and also acting as though Ed’s going to get himself (and Izzy) killed if he keeps going down this path.
I will never be sane over this. Izzy is a Celluloid Closet case study who’s been dropped into a Logo TV original, and so much of the conflict of his character comes from his trying to use the coping techniques from that world (including techniques used by queer coded villains! He’s not healthy!) in a world where these techniques are actively harmful rather than a way to survive.
#GOD when you frame it this way there is something so desperately sad about his character(via@fuckyeahisawthat)
To be honest I think he’s possibly the most tragic character on the show.
Ed & Stede are going through it right now, and it’s bad bad, but their happy ending has been telegraphed: steal some identities & ride off into the sunset after faking their own deaths. I’m pretty certain they reconcile & get the happily ever after (& I’m equally sure that they can only do that if Lucius is alive). The rest of the crew are happy under the co captaincy, Jim has made peace with their past to some degree & has Olu as well, etc. And very importantly, even though Ed also comes from the same place as Izzy, he lucked out and got a guide to the new world in Stede. He is starting to escape Izzy’s fate & likely will succeed, all because he has Stede.
Izzy? Izzy is on the other side of a glass wall, he can see the gay romcom but he’s under strict orders to never mention his own homosexuality. The references to masochistic tendencies are all he’s allowed—and to add insult to injury, he’s not even allowed to enjoy and embrace that part of his existence, a part that is in no way inherently bad as long as you’re engaging in it sanely and consensually. It’s just yet another case of coding with no fruition that in any other media would let straight audiences know he’s a Bad Gay Man.
It’s why I’m hoping the show continues to defy convention & figures out a happy-ish ending for Izzy. Even after (maybe even especially because of) everything he’s done, it would be exceptionally tragic if he didn’t get some way out of this hell, & by extension didn’t get to be part of the LGBTQ community that’s on the other side of that glass wall, on a show that’s a deliberate statement that we can live, thrive, get happily ever afters, and that our flag doesn’t actually mean death no matter what has been done to us.
izzy enjoyers of this site, i…. really want to do an izzy charm…………. is anyone here interested in carrying that little gremlin chihuahua man with you in a keychain?
not to talk about izzy hands but my wife and i were discussing how his little tie ring is symbolism for being a cock ring
and it occurred to me that while izzy would love to be someone’s lifestyle sub (if you peeled all the repression off him, like an onion) this would in fact be playing into izzy’s demented little view of the world, and would not in fact deal psychic damage.
izzy and stede are foils for each other. izzy imposes hierarchy on anarchic spaces and stede is like a hierarchy-dissolving little bacteria to him. he’s NOT trained but he beats izzy anyway immediately; his crew doesn’t behave the way a crew should; blackbeard, the best pirate ever, treats him as an equal; when izzy tries to enforce hierarchy by dueling him, stede ignores him as soon as he (stede) gets stabbed. this is incomprehensible to izzy, whose whole worldview is wrapped up in a) hierarchical structures and b) blackbeard being at the top of hierarchical structures
so while it is TRUE that izzy is a control freak whose queer desires center around losing control, being owned, etc etc etc, he wants the loss of control to happen in a very specific way (at blackbeard’s hands), so that it doesn’t disrupt his Hierarchy. he’s dug himself so deeply into his little hierarchical understanding of the world, and his desires in fact reinforce it.
you gotta take a spatula or something and dig him out of his self-inflicted hierarchy to impose psychic damage upon him.
in conclusion, here’s a concept: izzy fic tagged “Undernegotiated Vanilla, Non-Consensual Gentleness, Aftercare As Humiliation”
I know the joke about Izzy is “human dropped into a muppets movie” but the tragedy is that he’s a queer-coded character from some 1940s or 50s popcorn flick dropped into a pride parade in a floating gayborhood & he flat out has no idea how to deal with it. We learn he’s a great swordsman in the most homoerotic way possible when he uses his skills to cut open a man’s shirt. We see him react more openly and with less inner conflict when Ed slaps him on the back and says “I need you here” than when Ed implies to him, a minute earlier, that he could be a captain. When he’s part of an overtly queer scene where other characters get the romance & he just gets the subtext, Con O'Neill’s body language stands out even more—go back to the scene where Izzy tells Stede that Ed adores him, the way he strokes his fingers down the curtain dividing him from Stede. There is literally no straight explanation for this choice, but there is also no explicit acknowledgement that the character is queer; in a different, older show or movie, that body language would be the acknowledgment. He imbues the character with the looks and pauses that you would see in, like, Ben-Hur or something, where everyone knew a character was gay but nobody could say it out loud. Keep in mind that in the comedies where these characters would exist, the subtextually gay man would sometimes be best friends with a Strong Leading Man who got the girl in the end.
We hear him say outright that there’s no retirement for people like Izzy & Ed, only death, which is itself a hugely loaded analogy next to the title statement “our flag means death” when you consider our history & our use of flags throughout. And Izzy’s so focused on pure survival that he ends up nasty, manipulative, violent—the only way men like him can survive in his mind, or in the genre he’s from, if they don’t have a Strong Leading Man best friend like, say, a Blackbeard to protect him from the narrative. When Ed starts to live in Stede’s world, Izzy is both losing his subtextual boyfriend and also acting as though Ed’s going to get himself (and Izzy) killed if he keeps going down this path.
I will never be sane over this. Izzy is a Celluloid Closet case study who’s been dropped into a Logo TV original, and so much of the conflict of his character comes from his trying to use the coping techniques from that world (including techniques used by queer coded villains! He’s not healthy!) in a world where these techniques are actively harmful rather than a way to survive.
