This screenshot makes me absolutely feral. You have Stede standing in front of the moon so he’s illuminated from behind, but his face is also lit up, probably by a lantern we can’t see (that’s what I’m assuming anyway). This shot is Stede as Lighthouse.
And then you have Ed, mostly in darkness, but his face is just being kissed by the moonlight coming from behind Stede and the lantern light that’s fully illuminating Stede’s face. As if the light is emanating from Stede, which makes sense if he is a lighthouse.
And the edging on the shoulder of Ed’s leather jacket (or is that a holster of some kind? can’t really tell… maybe someone else knows of some other screenshots that show it better) looks like a tentacle. So this one screenshot illustrates perfectly Stede as Lighthouse and Ed as Kraken, with Stede’s light just starting to light Ed up. Meanwhile Stede is in his red bird robe that symbolizes the brightness and color Ed has brought into his life.
I’ve seen a lot of people comment on how Our Flag Means Death is refreshing because it’s not a story about ~queer people Being Queer™~ but it’s about queer people doing their thing while happening to be queer, just like straight people get in all the stories about straight people.
And yes, I totally get what it means - Stede’s story is not “coming out as gay”, it’s becoming a pirate captain, Jim’s story is not “coming out as nonbinary”, it’s about revenge, and so on. But it’s also… not quite all of it, in my opinion?
Our Flag Means Death IS about queerness. The plot is a narrative tool to convey messages that are about queerness. Okay, not only queerness – what the show is about in its core is that area of intersection of masculinity, queerness, trauma and identity. So yes, it is about queer people being queer.
What makes Our Flag Means Death refreshing and so, so good to watch is that it does this with love, with sweetness, with lightness despite not shying away from the dark parts of what it talks about. It’s a love letter to men, queer men specifically, written with so much care.
Everyone has pointed out how the men in the show look like regular men, not thirty-year-olds with six packs that play high schoolers on a CW show. And those regular men are shown as attractive, they are attractive, and interesting, and funny, and silly, and capable of love, and also capable of hurting others without meaning to because relationships are complicated and people are hard to figure out and our own selves are super hard to figure out.
In fact, the ideal of attractiveness of the show is very much queer (as in both queer and not imperialistic), and so is the value set of the show. The subtext is queer, and by this I don’t mean the queerness is all in the unsaid and not in the explicit, by this I mean that the unsaid of the show is about the queerness (and the other related topics, of course) in the way subtext is supposed to work, i.e. enriching and giving complexity and facets and depth to the text.
Itis a story about people doing things where the people are queer. But it’s not a story where the people doing the things “happen” to be queer. And that’s the great thing about it. It’s a gift from queer people to queer people (especially men and transmasculine people, but judging from the amount of queer women who are absolutely mindblown by the show, it goes for all of us) and that’s amazing.
i love Our Flag’s writing but you gotta admit Jim coming back for the last episode feels like “oops we focused too much on ed/stede and we forgot the parallel western we had going on”. which is understandable. but still, “hey Jim’s back!” is like… ok?
I’m hoping there’s a payoff of some kind in next season? That they came back because they learned a specific thing or whatever that was necessary to secure the ship’s help on or the crew’s help on or whatever. And that will come up when they get reunited with the crew in the next season, and be a driver if the plot. They just were too busy doing their boyfriend to get round to it in the last 5 minutes before everything went to shit. XD
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.
While we like to joke about Izzy being in the wrong genre, I would argue that there are in fact at least five distinct genre universes in the world of Our Flag Means Death, and all of them have different rules.
Stede Bonnet, and his crew when they’re around him, live in a Muppet movie. I didn’t come up with this analogy but it’s so accurate. Insane physical comedy and comedy-action where no one really gets hurt. Mild peril but you know everything is gonna work out. Terrible puns and sight gags, but room for sweet, genuine emotional moments too. The rules of time, space, probability and logic will bend for a good joke.
Izzy Hands is in a grimdark action/drama where if someone gets stabbed in the gut they will behave normally and fucking die. (Probably slowly and painfully, of sepsis.) Crucially I think Izzy also lives in a genre where you can only be subtextually queer, and violence (done for or with or to each other) is the only acceptable form of intimacy between men. This is why being forcibly dragged into Stede’s world, where everyone is busy having silly low-stakes misadventures and being gay and emotionally available all over the main text–and seeing his Subtextual Boyfriend go into this world and love it–sends him round the twist.
The British, Spanish and other imperialist militaries are in a Master and Commander-style naval adventure where they’re the heroes. This is why they all take it completely seriously when Stede (unintentionally) kills Badminton and takes hostages, even though we can see that he bumbled his way into it ass-backwards. This is also why Stede is so shocked to get actually for real stabbed aboard the Spanish ship. (“Did you mean to do that?”) He didn’t realize until that moment that he’d stepped into a different genre. The stabbing is one of the first Surprise Genre Switch moments we get and in retrospect it’s very important for setting up that in this world, the threat of getting hurt or killed is very real–which we need to understand to know that there are real stakes much later, when Stede almost gets executed by the British.
Hm. Can we assume that part of why Ed was so extra noodley and uncomfortable and on edge during the treasure hunt… He doesn’t spend much time on land?
He has the sea-est legs of sea legs, and the long trek meant he was basically a bit land-sick and likely putting extra strain on his knee etc?
Added to which, the abundance of insect and animal life was clearly not his usual fare either. As there is a distinct lack of snakes for example on ships normally. XD
But after he has a little sit, and rests his knee/legs, and has a snack and bumps his bloodsugar back up, and flirts with his crush a minute, and gets complimented, then he’s feeling much less shitty, and is much more able to take lucius’s words well and stop being a bitch and play along, etc.
i don’t ship edward and izzy. i just know for a fact that izzy wants to fuck him. i also don’t like izzy hands. he’s not my meow meow. he’s a little freak and i want to study him like a bug. when he’s on screen i am furious and also giggling and kicking my feet. i hate him and i never want him to leave. hope this helps.
I, unfortunately, am burdened with unironically positive feelings towards Izzy Hands
I’m not sure if Izzy wants to fuck Edward or get fucked by Edward, but I’m pretty sure which one *I* think he’s in desperate need of.
But love that feral little fucker with all my heart and soul, and I want him to stick around. And maybe get railed and loosen the fuck up.
*spoilers*
*spoilers*
The little shit sold his own service to the crown, on the terms that when he Also sold out Blackbeard, they would Give him Blackbeard.
And his face!
(I can’t find a gif of his little smile when they tell Ed, But I’m pretty sure this is the moment Ed goes to Stede)
He Absolutely was hoping/expecting Blackbeard would receive this massive betrayal in the disgustingly tender spirit in which it was intended.
Like “that’s fair”, he accepts that Ex is pissed, but he 100% does not perceive that he has crossed any kind of line.
He’s a pirate who doesn’t think signing with the crown and selling out other pirates is crossing a line, not if it’s for his captain. Not if it’s for Blackbeard.
This masochistic little fucker. He is just as weird and fucked as all the rest of the fuckers, just yeah. They’re all in a muppets musical and he’s from like. Repo: the genetic opera or some shit.
absolutely love everyone who acknowledges ed’s knee! it really means so much!!!!! i’m sure this was posted here somewhere but it makes me so :)
Looking through the comments:
1. Many of us did not notice, It blended in well enough to the general strappiness of the outfit. But I think that actually works well, because like for an in-universe explanation, you wouldn’t necessarily want it to be obvious where your weak point was if you had one. So unnecessary strappiness can potentially disguise visible mobility aid
2. Seems to be also another reference to a mad Max outfit, but like, Even if they chose initially to include it because of this aesthetic they were going for there, that doesn’t like mean it can’t have an in-universe explanation either.
3. Doesn’t wear all the time, but it is part of his like “standard combat-ready uniform”, combat being you know when he’s most likely to do something acrobatic, like swinging/jumping down onto a deck. A move that would probably be highly inadvisable if you’ve got Some flavor of long-term knee injury.
Also though, I haven’t rewatched, but it makes me think of that first moment he swings down and the revenge crew applaud him? And it’s clearly like supposed to be noticeable that what he did wasn’t that impressive but they’re still applauding? Specifically his landing is a tiny bit rough. He didn’t actually like swing that far or land that gracefully.
Which makes sense also if he’s got some reduction in mobility now that he is older and has been doing this ridiculous stuff for years, through many injuries.
What kind of crazy stunts was he pulling 10-15 years before our story begins????? XD
Okay, so I just finished watching the last episode of OFMD for the thousandth time and I just remembered a review I read before it came out that teased Stede getting a more comedic story in the episode while Ed got a darker one, and having watched that, it’s actually not 100% true, but it is super interesting because I thought the same thing until this rewatch.
The first two thirds of the episode, Stede is 100% the dramatic crux of the episode. After everything that happened in the last few minutes of episode 9, where his guilt completely overpowers him and we see him at his lowest so far in the whole show, it’s devastating to see him trying to force himself back into those strict social guidelines that we know he hates so much for the sake of two people who would clearly have been happier if he didn’t (Ed and Mary.) Seriously, this is probably him at his darkest. He pulls a knife on an innocent man. His family painted him out of their portraits. His wife wants to keep pretending he’s still dead. His daughter hates him and his son doesn’t know who he is. It’s depressing as all hell.
Meanwhile Ed is comparatively pretty lighthearted. He’s clearly heartbroken, but it’s not anywhere near as devastating as any of the stuff happening with Stede at that point. The crew are still supporting him in his awkward song-writing and crying in blanket forts. His talk with Lucius shows that he has an actual support structure for the first time in his life. And most importantly, for a while he actually seems to be getting better. He doesn’t immediately lose all his development from throughout the series. He gets genuinely excited about the crew putting on a talent show and seems like he wants to be a part of it. Most vitally, he asks them to keep calling him ‘Edward,’ which is as we all know the name he uses when he’s willing to be open and vulnerable with people.
The beauty of the episode is the switch we get in two consecutive scenes; Stede coming out to his wife, and Ed killing Lucius.
The coming out scene is unironically beautiful. It walks the line between being a revelation which was incredibly brave of Stede to do, and him just casually admitting a fact that he now knows to be true. When Mary hugs him, it’s really the apex of his character arc. He can finally let go of the guilt he feels about abandoning her, knowing she has a better life without him in it, and he’s no longer confused and tormented by his feelings for Ed. He finally lets himself be driven wholly by his heart and not by what he thinks is expected of him. By the end of the episode, this is probably Stede at his best emotionally. So from here, he gets a comedic arc where he gets to go all out faking his death. And it’s hilarious. The last impression we get of him in the series is him finally free, ready to return to his love, something unambiguously happy. And all of the comedy of the last few scenes with him is still present in the viewers’ minds, so we naturally associate his story now with all the lightness and brevity associated with the show’s humour.
In the meantime, immediately after the scene that gives us Stede at his best, we get the scene that gives us Ed at his worst. Him killing Lucius hurts so much, not only because it’s Lucius and we all love him, but because it’s so counter to everything Ed has shown himself wanting to be until now. He claims he doesn’t kill people in spite of evidence to the contrary, and out of the entire crew, he’s probably the closest with Lucius out of everyone minus Stede. He’s the one who convinces Ed to tell Stede how he feels about him. He’s the one who sees Ed crying in his blanket fort. He’s the only one who snaps at him when he’s making bad choices. So the sudden shift in their relationship portrayed so beautifully by Edward just smiling as he pushes him overboard is devastating, because if Ed doesn’t care about Lucius anymore, who does he care about?
The scene with Izzy immediately afterwards only makes it worse, because right now, he agrees with Izzy, but he’s still willing to mutilate him to prove a
point; he doesn’t care about anything anymore. And Izzy understands that. His glee immediately afterwards is proof that he’s won, and he knows he’s won. Blackbeard is himself again. From there, it’s all downhill as he kills off every part of Stede he has left, from taking his ship, to destroying his books, to leaving his crew to starve. Our last image of him is him alone in his room, after adding a bloodied heart to his flag as a literal way of expressing to the world that he will never love anything again, crying at a picture of Stede’s lighthouse, a parallel to the closing shot of Stede stood on his boat with one hand raised, emulating a lighthouse as he prepares to lead his crew away from danger, proving that even after everything he did to close himself off, he’s still fundamentally broken. Symbolically, our last shot of Edward is a man who has driven all of the light out of his life, and our last shot of Stede is a man who is returning with a newfound light in himself.
This structure was so well-done here, because honestly, giving all of the comedy to Stede and all of the drama to Ed would have been a disservice to both of their characters. Their arcs in this episode oppose each other perfectly, and the weight of comic relief is passed evenly between them, which is so much more satisfying on both a narrative and character standpoint
This is basically a longwinded way of saying, I love this show, we need a season 2.
Also I refuse to believe Lucius is actually dead. #LuciusLives.
In this essay I will … add to excellent discussion about the companion structures and themes of Episodes 07 and 08.
First, this is inspired by @bookshelfdreamsand@mikimeiko and dedicated to @speckled-jim (and a few other folks, you know who you are, who also like to scream about Izzy the Ratbastard).
As background, please consider this post (Mikimeiko) about Edward and Stede’s fear of losing each other and then follow up with this post (bookshelfdreams) about the themes of loss and abandonment in Episode 07 and 08. This is an excellent addition about Calico Jack’s role in the narrative and between the two of them you will be well-prepared to consider the following:
I will submit to all of you that Izzy Hands and his terrible life choices are the glue holding these companion episodes together, because Izzy planned this situationandhe used his deeply personal knowledge and understanding of Edward to instigate the breakup.
The full arc of these episodes is about loss, abandonment … and betrayal.
Izzy Hands is once again making everything awful and Making It Weird Forever (thanks @knowlesian). Ready to suffer? :D
Proceed past the cut.
Full Disclosure: This is the top-level summary or I’d be here all night.
-
07 - This is Happening
A brief summary of the situation between Ed and Stede: they are still deciding whether or not to accept each other and what that means during the treasure hunt. We get the lovely improvisational restaurant conversation, Edward does his ‘please touch my beard’ flirting thing, and then – oh no! The map burns and is ruined!
Lucius helpfully clues in Ed to the fact that Stede has set up this very Stede-directed adventure for him. Edward has heart eyes 100% of the time because this is probably the nicest thing anyone has ever tried to do (while being a lovable pure idiot about it). God, Stede is the most cinnamon of rolls. And Edward makes an effort to be sweet in return (Lucius reinforces this; it’s so fucking brilliant that Edward still threatens to stab him in the ‘fuckin face).
Did you notice that it’s an Izzy-style threat? A bit softer and gentler, but still with admirable cursing and pitch-perfect comedic timing.
Which brings us to Izzy.
Izzy is conspicuous by his absence. Where would Edward go if Edward left? Back to Izzy and the ‘next adventure!’ And it wouldn’t much look like this very impractical treasure hunt with a petrified orange as the prize.
If we compare the prizes Izzy recently took: one of Stede’s hostages, a Spanish warship, and The Revenge, itself. All very respectable (except Stede; Izzy put him back!)
Izzy, after trying to ‘put Stede back’ post-duel scene: None of this is going how I planned. I hate my entire life and my best friend just banished me from the ship. What is a first mate going to do without a captain to serve?
“This is Happening” is where we see Edward and Stede begin to recognize their relationship while Izzy experiences the full-on terror of his identity being stripped away. Read: loss and abandonment. Izzy is experiencing both of these in the background, and it’s this terror of losing Edward and of contemplating a future without that relationship that prompts him to FUCKING CALL UP CHAUNCEY FUCKING BADMINTON.
Izzy. What the fuck.
08 - We Gull Way Back
Now for a quick linguistic aside on the episode title that you need to understand before we proceed further. “We Gull Way Back” is directly referencing three things:
1. “We Go Way Back” = Calico Jack is Edward’s old friend, buddy, and ex-lover.
2. “Gull” = the Death of Karl and Buttons’s fabulous ability to hex Calico Jack. It’s a weird reverse ex(orcism). Yes this is a pun. Shoot me.
3. “Gull” = an archaic term for “to trick, to subvert, or to fool.” This last theme is where Izzy Hands comes in and it’s a direct title reference to his role in this episode and in setting up the entire circumstances of this arc without being present on-screen. Because David Jenkins is brilliant.
-
You may be wondering: Ferus, if Izzy doesn’t show up in this episode, what are you going to analyze?
Ready to be fucked up? Because this has been fucking me up all day. Brace yourselves. Recall all the previously cited meta about Calico Jack and the role he plays in questioning Stede’s identity and making Edward think Stede couldn’t handle the old days?
Izzy knew:
All of Edward’s history
What Edward’s reaction would be to seeing this old friend and ex-lover
What Calico Jack would think of Stede
What old hobbies Jack and Blackbeard used to share
The story of Blind Man’s Cove, that Jack once saved his life there, and that it had no escape routes
That neither Stede nor the rest of the crew would suspect this trap (because none of them know Edward and their history as Blackbeard as well as he does)
That this trap was calibrated specifically and personally to trick Edward into being the one who took Stede to a place where the English could catch and execute him
It’s fucking me up so bad, fam.
It’s not just a betrayal, it’s probably one of the most intimately personal and subtle betrayals I’ve seen depicted on screen.
What the FUCK, Izzy. No shit Edward was right to punch you right in your fucking face!
And it’s the first time we really see Edward lose his temper with Izzy, by the way. Foreshadowing the descent into The Kraken we get in Episode 10.
Izzy set up the whole fucking thing and he’s paying the price.
-
Additional Disclaimer: If you’d like very specific dialogue and scene examples of how all of the above is working, my ask box is always open for screaming about Izzy Hands. My word is not definitive in any way, shape, or form. If you also like to scream about Izzy Hands please know that I am very friendly and open to being challenged, contradicted, dismantled, or otherwise appropriated with or without credit and/or reference. I love OFMD a totally normal amount.
Okay, so, I just wanted to talk about how episode 07 and 08 of Our Flag Means Death are two beautiful companion pieces about Stede’s and Ed’s fear of losing each other.
I wanna talk about the Fandom idea of Izzy Hands as a “manipulator,” and common ideas around Ed “performing” Blackbeard. I’ve just been kicking around a lot of thoughts about the topic after seeing a lot of meta that feels not-quite-right to me.
First; I admire the writing in Our Flag Means Death SO MUCH. I think that it stands up really well to endless different analyses and has a lot of nuance! So I’m not trying to say like, “all XYZ meta is wrong.”
But I’m REALLY starting to balk at the popular fandom notion that Izzy is a devious manipulator and that Ed is just “performing” depending on who he’s with in order to have love and acceptance— in a way that I feel needlessly victimizes Ed and discounts his agency and power as a character.
First of all, Izzy isn’t manipulative; he’s a blunt fucking instrument.
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.
It is actually extremely important to me that y'all understand the importance of the talent show subplot to the structure of ofmd being not just a gay romcom but a story fiercely thematically opposed to toxic masculinity and amatonormativity; how Ed the Emo crying into his blanket fort and silk gown writing sad boy poetry music is the most emotionally healthy he’s ever been and a hairsbreadth away from sustained happiness.
Which is a hard sell with Stede still playing house and straight man a million lightyears and then one (1) rowboat trip away, but I swear the reason that Ed has this subplot instead of disappearing for twenty minutes of B-plot about mutinying against Izzy only to swan in as The Kraken at the end is because Our Flag Means Death correctly believes with its whole big gay pirate heart that Ed doesn’t need Stede to be happy.
Something I haven’t seen anyone talk about yet is why Ed throws first Lucius off the ship and then Stede’s books. It’s not simply rage or wanting to get rid of things that remind him of Stede, it’s about his feelings of powerlessness and inadequacy because of his lack of literacy.
First, when the British almost execute Stede, Lucius’ ability to read and write saves Stede’s life when Ed’s plan has failed, as his appeal to the Act of Grace for Stede is not accepted. Then, when they’re supposed to sign the text of the Act of Grace, his illiteracy becomes highly visible, impossible not to notice, as he signs an x as his signature. It’s a small but heartbreaking moment because it’s an extremely significant thing in a world where some are literate and some are not.
Being able to read and write gives you an enormous advantage in terms of power over people who cannot read. He might be the most clever, resourceful, skilled pirate in the seas, but in the moment reading and writing come into play, he’s suddenly extremely vulnerable. He’s surrounded by men who hold enormous power over him in virtue of the mere difference in their levels of literacy, regardless of every other difference in abilities they might have.
Ed is going through something that shakes his identity - giving up his identity as a pirate, even his beard which is so symbolical of his identity as Blackbeard - and that feelings of vulnerability and helplessness hit a nerve. In the moment Stede doesn’t show up, and Ed thinks he’s been stood up, he’s bound to feel inadequate. Why did Stede stand him up? Because Ed is not worthy of him, after all. Because Stede is a literate, cultured gentleman and Ed is nothing. He might carry around a piece of fancy fabric, but that’s just something stolen from someone else.
At first he tries to hang on, having his lyrics written down (which, again, sheds light on the difference between him and Lucius), trying to act as a cultured gentleman of sorts, but that’s unsustainable in the long run, because he doesn’t actually think he can be that person. He’s actually drowning in feelings of inadequacy and helplessness, and does what he did as a child when overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy and helplessness: becomes the Kraken.
In conclusion, something I really wish to see in season 2 of the show is for Ed to be taught how to read. Stede could do it, continuing on the trend of the two of them teaching each other things, or - an option I very much like - possibly Lucius, which would help Ed and Lucius get closer again after the, um, accident - and also considering that, in my opinion, Ed’s action is pretty much directly connected to Lucius’ literacy.
After all, what is the cutlery lesson but foreshadowing for actually more relavant and useful teachings in how to belong to Stede’s world? Silly manners don’t matter, but, pardon the reference, reading is fundamental. There will always be an imbalance of power between the two of them if Ed remains illiterate, and only filling that gap can make Ed feel like he’s not inadequate.
Ed and Izzy are hard for me because I don’t know enough of their past to know what I’m seeing. Were they ever good to each other, or for each other? Have they ever understood each other at all? Did they get hurt together, turn into pirates together? Were they friends first before the brutality of their life killed that? Or has Izzy only ever been attached to a myth whose power he loved and whose heart he’d never seen?
I don’t like Izzy’s “loyalty.” It’s greedy, not goodhearted. He does seem to believe that brutality is just realism, but he’s actively feeding the horror. He encourages Ed to trust no one else; is exasperated, not sympathetic, with his increasing misery; tells him the crew would mutiny if not for him, claims he’s the one holding everything together (maybe true, maybe exaggerated).
When Ed wants to meet Stede, he tries to set up a misunderstanding that will get Stede killed instead of taking the message Ed asked him to (has he stopped Ed getting to know anyone else?). When that fails he threatens to leave; when he realizes Ed’s not really set on killing Stede, he tries to kill him against Ed’s will (claiming it’s what’s best and Ed needs Izzy to rescue him from himself!).
Finally he betrays them. Izzy refuses to become a willing member of the Revenge crew like the others. Izzy wants to be First Mate Hands or God. And Izzy gets that power from Ed, and he only has power over Ed when he’s volatile and miserable and unable to manage alone.
He can’t sustain that if Ed feels safe. He can’t convince him their life should stay the same if Ed’s got something better. He doesn’t want to change and grow too; he wants Ed to stay who he’s been, unless he really will murder Stede and let Izzy have it all. Then maybe Izzy would let him go. It’s the only thing that gives him pause. He isn’t hesitating for Ed’s happiness, and he doesn’t think twice about destroying it in the end. He can’t bear to see him genuinely happy, because if he’s really happy he won’t need Izzy anymore.
It shocks me that Ed lets him back on the ship after his betrayal. But for a long time Ed has let Izzy do what he does. Izzy takes care of business for him; he makes his life easier; he bolsters his reputation, and as a pirate who secretly can’t kill anyone directly, Ed really needs that bolstering. He likes how Izzy makes him look. After everything, he doesn’t know how to survive the world without Stede’s gentle courage making him feel safe, or Izzy’s brutality making him feel shielded. Ed telling Izzy that he’s still Blackbeard, and Izzy saying no, he’s not? That he can’t command Izzy’s respect or his protection? That rattles him.
If Izzy doesn’t see him as Blackbeard any more, he won’t help the men see that; he won’t help the world see that. And then Ed will be really alone. Easy pickings. And he’s spent so long as Blackbeard; it has to feel unfair to lose that, too. For all he was sick of it, and trapped in it, his reputation is all he has left.
The closest parallel I can see to Ed and Izzy in the show is Stede and Mary. Neither of them are good for each other. They actively bring out the worst in each other—half by selfishness, half by not really understanding who each other could become, given the chance. But for a long time they rely on each other for stability, anyway. I don’t think they’ve imagined yet who they could be, at the start. But even if they have, Mary needs Stede’s last name and Stede needs her heterosexuality, in the world they live in; polite society would eat them up if she became a bohemian artist with a lover, or he became an adventurer and loved a man. So they go on until he can’t bear it (and then try again until she can’t).
It’s not that they’re helpless. All of them have agency in what they’re doing—Stede chooses not to talk about his misery with Mary when she invites him to (I think I’ve heard you crying? Alone?) and never asks her if he can go. Mary gives up on communication thoroughly enough to try murder as her final out (objectively fucked up even if it’s played as funny). Meanwhile Ed chooses to yank Izzy’s hopes around (you’ll be captain!), lets him do the dirty work, and later maims him to force his respect; Izzy chooses to betray who Ed loves and threaten and belittle him until he goes cold again.
None of them are good to each other. But Stede and Mary find a way to release each other in the end, even if they dodge the social consequences via fuckery; Ed could only manage to passively watch Izzy sent off with Stede there, and then takes him straight back after Stede is gone. Ed chooses to use Izzy’s need to be needed, and Izzy refuses to let him grow. It’s going to have to end in crisis, somehow. They can’t let each other go.
Excellent meta, no notes, just wanted to add as supporting evidence that Izzy considers himself god’s gift to any crew but the minute he’s given an inch of unmitigated power, he goes completely mad with it. He’s an enforcer, not a leader.
But the chilling beat in light of this meta is the moment Ed comes back and asks for tea in his room. He doesn’t notice that Izzy’s about to be tossed overboard in a mutiny. It’s played as a comedic moment but with your meta pointing out that Ed thinks that he needs Izzy, thinks that Izzy is what allows him to be Blackbeard, it shows an absolutely chilling alternate side that Ed doesn’t see, can’t see that Izzy is bad at the job.
So so so good. This leads me to the idea that (I’ve seen bits of floating around) that Blackbeard isn’t actually some aspect of Ed’s personality where he compartmentalizes all his trauma and toxic traits. Blackbeard is a creation of BOTH Ed AND Izzy and therefore cannot exist one without the other. Ed provides the charisma, the creativity, the showmanship. Izzy is the taskmaster, the intimidator, the stage manager. Ed by himself is a ticking time bomb and Izzy by himself is a dictator. Together they are the most feared pirate captain on the high seas.
Ed, when he first meets Stede, says something along the lines of, “haven’t thought about it that way before but yeah, I work for Blackbeard.” And Izzy says that he “serves” Blackbeard. In spite of this, neither of them actually understand that Blackbeard and Ed are not one in the same. As soon as Ed starts to realize this, his and Izzy’s relationship starts to break down, and Izzy goes to extreme measures at great cost to get it back.
I can’t really support this next statement with evidence, just vibes, but I think Blackbeard died when Stede and Ed said “co-captains” at the same time. They complement each other. They’re curious about each other. They like each other and they love each other. But Ed and Izzy can’t have that same dynamic with Blackbeard between them. Captain and first mate is the closest they can get. And Izzy probably thought he was content with being Blackbeard’s right hand, because it never occurred to him to think he could be Ed’s co-captain. But then…
I’m slightly tempted to go back and find every instance of someone in OFMD talking about what Blackbeard/Ed was like before we meet him. The show is just littered with references like, “He’d kill you if you called him Ed,” or listing the atrocities he committed like burning a ship full of people alive or feeding people their own toes, and even casual cruelties like telling Fang to put his dog down if he wants to join the crew…
… and the thing is, Ed is so lovely that we kind of dismiss all these statements the same way Stede does? They’re treated like comedy beats or tall tales at most. We’re kind of asked to forget and ignore them as being inaccurate—despite the fact they’re often coming from people who know Ed VERY WELL, much better than Stede knows him and for much, much longer— and we’re still being told to ignore them aaaalllll the way up until Ed’s heel turn back into the Kraken (a form of Blackbeard that might arguably turn out to be a way worse version than even the hair-raising rumors we’ve heard before this point).
I want to compile them because I think they may have all been true. And not just true but actually blazing neon signposts for what we can expect to see from Ed in S2. Sure, I think he’ll be redeemed, and yes I think his actions will be tempered by his regrets and the pain he’s in and the fact that maybe he still doesn’t really want to be doing all this anymore. But I think before we can get a proper healing arc for Ed like the one we got for Stede we have to see just how bad he really was and guys, I think it was really bad and that we’ve been told this outright the whole time.
Not exactly on topic but this just makes me think about how OFMD creates tension by butting genres up against each other that have different expectations surrounding the consequences of actions and extent of harm caused by violent acts.
What I see OP talking about here is how we have two genres in conflict: the gritty pirate semi-realistic world, where harsh reality forces people into making horrible choices and everyone is deeply traumatized and violence is extremely normalized, vs. the muppet world, where slapstick rules and no one actually dies and if you cut off your finger your boyfriend will just whittle you a new one and you can take a sword through your guts as long as goes through the right spot. In the gritty pirate world, we acknowledge that the horrible things people do to each other are horrible, but everything is pretty horrible so do we really care? Plus, we can probably find a way to excuse these actions if they can be rationalized somehow. In the muppet world, the horrible things people do to each other aren’t actually horrible for…muppet reasons. The only “people” who die are the ones who deserve it, and any disability can be accommodated with a bit of creativity, and if what they did really was that horrible, then just chalk it up to them being quirky and move on.
Anyway, so we have Ed, who originates in the gritty pirate world, and Stede, who originates in a period drama, there together on the Revenge, which is the locus of the muppet world. The deaths and maimings that Ed was responsible for happened in the gritty pirate world, but for the most part, we’re talking about it in the muppet world. The best example of this is when Calico Jack is talking about Ed burning the ship with all the crew inside. Jack describes it in great detail, down to the skin melting off the victims’ faces. Stede appears pretty disturbed by the telling and Ed seems somewhat ashamed. In the pirate world, we’ll accept a good excuse, but Ed doesn’t provide rationale for these actions. Instead he tries to brush it off, saying, “Well technically, the fire killed those guys,” which is a very funny muppety line.
So here I ask the question: Am I supposed to frame Ed’s actions described here as “horrible things that are inexcusable even in the pirate world” or as “something Ed did when he was feeling quirky back in the day, and it doesn’t matter anyway because the victims are muppet-people for whom death is not necessarily the final consequence”? I’m not sure, and I love that. That Calico Jack is pretty muppety compared to the other pirates we’ve seen (Izzy particularly, and Blackbeard & Ivan & Fang in the scenes prior to them being on the Revenge) doesn’t really help me come to a solid conclusion.
Later, when the English capture the Revenge, the muppet world breaks down, at least for Stede and Ed. Stede then tries to go back to his period drama, but Mary has created her own muppet world that he’s not a part of. In a period drama, the presumed-dead husband would likely be greeted with, if not fanfare, then at least some measure of joy or drama, not your wife vomiting at the sight of you when you interrupt her gathering of happy widows. Stede is not the right kind of muppet for Mary’s muppet world, and he ends up bringing some gritty pirate drama to her art show when he nearly stabs Doug. It’s shocking, but it’s Mary’s muppet world, so after a round of attempted murder on Mary’s part, they’re even and all is forgiven.
Meanwhile, Ed is bringing the gritty pirate world to the Revenge–Izzy never entered the muppet world after all, so it makes sense that he was the catalyst for Ed to lose his footing and fail to maintain his place in the muppet world there. Luckily, it seems that the muppet world is actually a state of mind, so the crew who are marooned are rescued almost immediately. Lucius, who got too close to Blackbeard, and Frenchie and Jim, who have darker backstories (Jim definitely, and you can probably make an argument from what we know about Frenchie) are not so lucky.
Because of Mary’s arc in particular, I think endgame here is for everyone to get themselves back into the muppet world, where happiness has a sort of ease to it and all harm can heal without too much time or effort and anything bad that happens off screen wasn’t that bad, actually. How that will happen, who can say?
In the past 10 years or so, I’ve seen a lot more commentary/critique of media that involves victims of violence where death and injury is either played for laughs (hard to think of a specific example because it’s so pervasive in comedy) or not acknowledged at all (mass casualties in war/alien invasion/etc.). So there’s a greater consciousness around “hey, that guy he killed was a person!” or when Ed says, “Maiming’s different. Love a good maim,” and I think, “lol what a funny thing to say…that’s really fucked up, though, isn’t it?” And I think this consciousness is what allows the juxtaposition of these genres to add some really interesting layers to the storytelling.
okay, so: we don’t talk a lot about toxic caretaking as a society. it’s a weird and uncomfortable topic to get into, because not all toxic caretaking is malicious despite being always harmful to both parties involved and we… sort of like our understanding of these things to stay simple, which that is very much not.
it’s also a trait we firmly associate with women! which complicates this even further, because of all our stupid sexist baggage.
which is why it’s veeeery very interesting that outside misty quigley, izzy might be the best example of a realistic toxic caretaker i’ve seen in media in a long time.
because if we look at what izzy says, it’s all very: ‘look how hard i WORK, does no one appreciate me, oh woe oh sorrow look at all i put up with, this place would be lost without me’. when we look at what he does… he’s not actually doing any of that!
he’s fairly regularly cruel, he’s a terrible communicator, and sort of worst of all he’s not even all that good at… managing people, i guess? if the ship was in good working order, it seems unlikely that it’s solely izzy doing things like grabbing fang by the beard and screaming FUCK YOU ALLLL, DO WHAT I TELL YOOOOOU that made it work.
could be, i guess! but it seems somewhat unlikely.
(insisting they are the only one who keeps everything moving and everybody would be lost without them: peak toxic caretaker.)
even beyond that, when ed says ‘hey: fucking knock it off, maybe?’, because he’s well aware Izzy Is Just Like This, izzy goes TWICE AS HARD. this man does not actually listen to a single no! all season! ed says izzy stop and izzy says go go go, and all that. he refuses to allow for any real boundaries to ever be set.
the juiciest part of all: the fact that izzy doesn’t see it that way is peakest of PEAK toxic caretakers.
he is this way because this is the only way he knows to express the mangled, fucked up ball of sadness in his chest, and because the world told him to channel his natural impulses into weird, violent channels or ELSE. ‘izzy thinks he’s doing xyz’ is almost always an indication the reality is a lot more fucked up and complicated than that.
and tbqh, that’s part of what makes him (and what he’s actually doing by rolling around pooping on every single party he can find) so fucking interesting.
the fucked up masochism/anger/tenderness junction where izzy chose his weird little s1 hill to die on is so good. so awful! so fuckin’ sad. LOVE IT.
But Izzy is right! He really is the only one fussed about maintenance, order, and other small details like how to keep everyone from dying. We never see Ed, or Stede, or anyone else take the initiative on these things, even when the ship is badly damaged after a fight and the Spanish are looming over the horizon. Izzy makes them do hard work and he’s a fucking dick about it, but it’s work that must be done because the consequences of NOT doing it range from inconvenient to hazardous to downright lethal. The only time he really does something pointless is when he makes the crew swab the deck again in ep 10, because he’s feeling useless in other ways - so he reverts to the only thing he knows he can still do, which is be a good ‘housewife’ and keep up appearances.
What Izzy fails to understand is that he’s not hated for being the bad guy spoiling everyone’s fun by making them perform essential tasks; he’s hated because he has zero people skills and zero interest in learning them. He’s the guy who sees clouds instead of sausages, because he never stops to consider that there could be another way of approaching a situation.
gonna disagree with you on this one! i can see why you take his word for it, but i want to point out you’re missing that we never see narrative consequences when people ignore his orders; so the show itself refutes your point. also i want to add that izzy never actually does any work himself—he tells other people to do work. (and he does it pretty horridly!)
the guy standing around yelling “get back to work, you useless fuckers” while never pitching in himself isn’t right, he’s just a dick. a dick i enjoy! but i think it’s important to notice izzy yells at other people to do things he will not do himself.
Gonna put this part of your tags here bc this!!!
My best friend noticed the first time she watched it and pointed it out to me, and i haven’t seen many people discussing it.
One other way that Izzy is a caretaker is by managing Ed’s moods/getting him out of his cabin/etc… But as another post pointed out, he only succeeds 23% of the time, bc he is rubbish at it.
Blackbeard’s seeming unwillingness to intervene during Izzy and Stede’s duel really bothered me. At first, I interpreted it purely as “he doesn’t want Stede to die but he can’t help him because pirate honor or whatever” but now I think its actually more to do with the fact he grew up in abusive household. He tries to stop it but he very quickly disengages when he gets push back from Izzy. He slowly starts edging away as soon as Izzy and Stede start verbally engaging with each other..if you watch he edges all the way to the other side of the boat. Seeing two people he cares about in an argument makes him revert back to his childhood powerlessness. He can’t do anything but watch helplessly because that is the survival strategy he adopted for this situation when he was a kid.
The show does focus a lot on how Stede is still motivated/haunted by his own childhood trauma, so I don’t think its a coincidence that this scene happened right after we learned that Ed grew up in an abusive household.
I really love the slang in ofmd, how every character uses slang that matches where they/the actor is from, to the point where I’m almost convinced the actors were given slang-less scripts and told to just insert whatever words they want wherever they see fit
