#of course stede would immediately buy it
Ok, I have a controversial opinion. A minor pet peeve turned giant pet peeve because my brain it’s stupid and would not let it rest.
It was not. A leap year.
And not because 1717 cannot be a leap year (it’s ofmd, I would be prepared to believe that a year ending in 7 could be a leap year).
But.
Ed says “for it’s september 2nd and tonight’s a full moon”. And Izzy says “it’s september 1st”. And Lucius adds “he’s right, it’s the 1st. the full moon’s tomorrow”. And Ed’s face is like “OH NO! What the fuck???” And then he says “it’s a leap year”. And there’s murmur, and the only person who validates that “leap year” it’s Stede (who doesn’t know much about sailing and has a tendency to believe things).
Ok so. How does a leap year work. You add a day in February. Let’s say it is a leap year, but Ed didn’t realize it. He thought the full moon would be on the 2nd of september > but the day that would have been the 2nd of september is now the 1st.
So, we have option number one: Ed is keeping track of full moons by counting 29.5 days between one he saw and the next one. He would have guessed the date right, because he would have been counting from the moon in august (after the 29th of february).
Option number two: Ed makes a calendar of the full moons at the beginning of the year, memorizing the dates in which the moon should be full. Even ignoring that he would have realized something was wrong in march, the reaction of the crew would have been “the full moon was yesterday”.
Option number three (increasingly insane and with a number of problems itself): Ed has a calendar with the moon phases signed on it and the person who made it didn’t realize it was a leap year and got the dates wrong. Still has the problem of option number two.
He got the date wrong. He thought it was wednesday but it was actually tuesday. And he mumbled the first thing that came into his mind to not admit “I have made a silly little mistake and now we’re all going to die”. Which, understandable.
But it was not. A leap year.
