Freedom In The Dark

[white|Canadian|she/her] A place to talk about the radical politics of hope and revolution in Black Sails, a show to which I devote simultaneously too much thought and not nearly enough thought. Also, James McGraw has done nothing wrong in his life (except for the time he sold enslaved people, of course).

[bring-it-all-down]

Much has been said about the Black Sails finale and its statement of the show’s themes, so I’d like to focus instead on the penultimate episode, specifically the following speech Jack gives as he’s headed back to Nassau with the goal of killing Flint:

The result ahead of us promises to be a victory of a different sort. A true victory. Freedom...in every sense of the word. How many men in the history of the world have ever known it? How remarkable a moment is this? How fortunate are we to be standing on the threshold of it?

I think this speech really gets to the heart of the show: it’s ultimately about what it means to be truly free. While this notion of freedom is discussed in Flint’s unparalleled final speech about dragons, it’s perhaps in 4.09 that we get the fullest exploration of freedom.

There has obviously been a lot written on the subject of freedom throughout human history, and rather than foolishly attempt to summarize thousands of years of philosophy, I’m going to refer to one of my favorite understandings, written by W.E.B. DuBois:

I dream of a world of infinitive and valuable variety; not in the laws of gravity or atomic weights, but in human variety in height and weight, color and skin, hair and nose and lip. But more especially and far above and beyond this, is a realm of true freedom: in thought and dream, fantasy and imagination; in gift, aptitude, and genius—all possible manner of difference, topped with freedom of soul to do and be, and freedom of thought to give to a world and build into it, all wealth of inborn individuality. Each effort to stop this freedom of being is a blow at democracy—that real democracy which is reservoir and opportunity” (The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part Which Africa Has Played in World History, pg. 165.)

DuBois here notes three central elements of freedom: the physical (“to do and be”), the mental (“thought and dream, fantasy and imagination”), and the generational (“give to a world and build into it”). The first two components of freedom are understood by much of Western political philosophy through the terms “negative liberty” and “positive liberty” (coined by Isaiah Berlin), freedom from external threats and freedom to engage in philosophic activity. To these conceptions, DuBois adds a third that all the white dudes who conceived of the other two wouldn’t be concerned with: central to achieving them is the recognition that every individual owes prior and future generations their efforts to maintain liberty, that liberty is not just a theoretical principle but an action.

Turning now to episode 4.09, I think we can begin to understand how each of these three types of freedom overlap.

To start, the conflict of the episode deals with negative liberty. Silver and Flint to some degree know that if one catches the other with the chest, there is a chance they will be killed, and Silver wants the chest to ensure that Woodes Rogers does not kill Madi. In short, they are fighting for their survival, their physical freedom.

Moving on to the flashbacks between Flint and Silver, we begin to see the connection between negative liberty and positive liberty. First, because Silver and Flint are equals without the same political obligations to each other as they have to the crew, the people who serve them and who they serve in turn, they can be honest with each other. Silver recognizes this in telling Flint: “The men...I have to manage how they see me...But for pride to be an issue between you and I, well, I think we’re playing past that by now.” Because they, at that point, have physical/negative liberty with each other, they are then allowed to pursue mental/positive liberty, that being the revelation of their true selves. 

However, Flint becomes aware that this physical liberty is an illusion because Silver is unwilling to meet him equally in their pursuit of positive liberty: 

You know my story. Thomas, Miranda, all of it. Know the role it played in motivating me to do the things that I've done, the things I will do. It has made me transparent to you. Not only that, but when I told you this story, you insinuated yourself into it. The latest in a line of ill-fated partners, situating yourself such that...were you and I ever to come to blows, I'd be forced to hesitate before doing you any harm.

Thus Silver actually has a physical advantage over Flint, negating any semblance of Flint’s physical liberty in their relationship. Through Silver’s attempts to kill Flint in this episode and in the finale, we see that without both physical/mental (or negative/positive) liberty present in any relationship, neither will exist; you cannot have one without the other.

This brings us to what I’ve decided to call generational freedom, though I suppose it could also be called communal freedom. In this episode, the concept of generational freedom is brought up in relation to both Jack and Madi. First, we see it in Jack’s conversation with the man he chose to navigate him to Skeleton Island:

Jack: You sailed with Avery.

Old man: Long time ago.

Jack: 20 years? More, even, maybe?

Old man: More, aye.

Jack: Mm-hmm. You do know where you're going, yes? No, seriously, I've got quite a lot riding on this.

Old man: One day, you'll leave the account. Take a wife, father children. See less and less of the sea until she becomes like a painting hanging on the wall, static and irrelevant to your daily existence. But she'll keep on calling you. And when she does, you'll step into that painting and feel the swell beneath your feet. It'll all come back as if it were like yesterday.

Jack: Is that so?

Old man: I've watched you and yours handle the account since I and mine left it. Accomplish things that no one I ever sailed with could dream of. From what I've overheard, if you reach Skeleton Island, might mean the end of the governor. Maybe keep the account alive a little while longer. Is that so?

Jack: That and more.

Old man: Then I'll take you to it. Hold on to this for as long as you can, for all of us who once had it...and walked away.

In this conversation, we see the generational connections within piracy. The old man sailed with Henry Avery, the person most responsible for establishing the current status of piracy in Nassau, and he is conversing with the person who will usher Nassau into a new era. He is careful to remind Jack of this link and of how unseverable it is; no matter how far away Jack gets from piracy, he will never be able to leave it fully behind. There is some sense of owing his existence in this world to Avery and all those who came before him, a debt he must repay with his actions (namely, removing Woodes Rogers and continuing the life of piracy in Nassau).

Immediately after this conversation, we get Woodes Rogers’ bargaining with Madi. He offers her an ultimatum: accept his treaty or he will kill Silver and all of Silver’s crew, which includes many of Madi’s people. Madi rejects his ultimatum with one of the most poignant speeches in the show:

The voice you hear in your head, I imagine I know who it sounds like, as I know Eleanor wanted those things. But I hear other voices. A chorus of voices. Multitudes. They reach back centuries. Men and women and children who'd lost their lives to men like you. Men and women and children forced to wear your chains. I must answer to them and this war, their war, Flint's war, my war, it will not be bargained away to avoid a fight, to save John Silver's life or his men's or mine. And you believe what you will, but it was neither I nor Flint, nor the Spanish raider who killed your wife. That, you did.

Because of her existence as a former slave who had lived in hiding for most of her life, Madi most fully understands generational freedom. She knows that the supposed freedom Rogers’ treaty offers her and her people is not actual freedom because it fails to address the unfreedom of her ancestors, of the rest of the enslaved people in the Caribbean, because she knows that freedom will never be achieved on the terms of the oppressor. She knows that she owes this war to every victim of England’s empire and that it is the only way to achieve what DuBois calls the opportunity to “give to a world and build into it.” 

This episode thus introduces the idea that “freedom every sense of the word” depends on one recognizing one’s duty to one’s community that consists of not just its current members, but its past and future members. Complete freedom is achieved when one begins to fight to protect the freedom of those who do not yet exist. Madi understands this about freedom, as does Flint, but despite Silver’s insistence that he and Flint are true friends and equals, he is incapable of grasping the generational component of freedom and he therefore ensures that physical and mental freedom, too, will fall outside of his grasp.

[etoilesombre]

you know what? people die all the time. if we are truly holding all lives equal, people might as well die as a consequence of resistance as oppression, so long as there is a chance the resistance will be meaningful.

[somfte]

(Taking as given that this is about the razing of Charles Town and the raids between 2.10 and during 3.1)

Yeah, I think specifically in the context of u.s. american television there are, like, conflicting cultural tropes that can make this really messy to talk about.

So on the one hand, there is a long-standing tradition of not encouraging audiences to consider the fallout and consequences of a protagonist's actions on characters played by extras. And that is definitely coming in to play with the Charles Town and raids casualties. Flint is still the protagonist even if he's morally gray or an anti-hero (I'm not bothering to look up technical term meanings, so grain of salt with those terms), and the deaths of bystanders aren't something the plot really has time for and/or it gets written off as a "well he's lost to his grief so it IS bad and he doesn't care which is why he's a madman who won't stop" characterization.

And I think that's one way to approach it for sure. What I am understanding you as talking about (and please correct me if I'm off on my own thing) is the part I'm also more interested in, which is to think about this in a way that is interwoven with the real world, with real oppression and resistance.

To begin with, I want to take as given that uncompromising non-violence is a non-starter for meaningful resistance. Non-violent actions can be part of a broader resistance strategy, but it cannot be the only tactic in play to be effective. (I will never stop quoting le comité invisible's The Coming Insurrection: "In reality, the question of pacifism is serious only for those who have the ability to open fire. In this case, pacifism becomes a sign of power, since it's only in an extreme position of strength that we are freed from the need to fire.")

If I understand correctly, you are saying, essentially, that in the context of resistance, to weigh more heavily the lives of bystanders than the lives of the oppressed is inherently inequitable - it is a position that sides with the oppressors by default. That is, if enslaved people are being treated as expendable, or the lower classes don't have access to adequate food/heat/medicine, and they are dying at higher rates than privileged people as a result of that, then engaging in acts of resistance that result in civilian casualties isn't actually causing more loss of life, it is simply redistributing that loss. And, if the resistance is effective, in the longer term it is reducing harm. (That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't have compassion or give a thought to people who are killed. You can have compassion for them and still think it's okay that they were killed, in the same way that we can have compassion for and understand the decisions that people make even if they aren't decisions you'd make or even relate to.)

So then in the context of Black Sails, for me the question becomes not "was it wrong to kill innocents?" but rather "were the bombardment of Charles Town and the coastal raids acts of resistance against oppression?"

I think that can sometimes be a bit of a personal question, and sometimes the way I think about it can vary, but most of the time I tend to lean towards "yes it was resistance, and being fueled by grief doesn't negate that (and even supports it*)".

Some of my thoughts about it are:

Not all acts of resistance are perfectly intersectional - yes, for most of the series Flint is not considering anything like an anti-slavery position; he is concerned initially with exacting revenge on the political system that murdered his lover and destroyed his career. The way he comes around on this later is complicated by the way the show is written in a u.s. american sort of limp, colorblind kind of way, but it IS there (even if he was faking it for the sake of the argument in 3.5, my personal read on it is that by S4 he is more fundamentally committed to anti-slavery - see: siding with Madi against Billy. I do also think the show can be read in a way where he is just using the maroons as tools in his maniacal quest for revenge, but that's a slightly different discussion that I don't want to get into, and I definitely don't think it's the main way to read S4). But if we as the marginalized or allies of the marginalized expect everyone to broadly understand intersections of oppression without sometimes needing to sit with it and learn, we cut ourselves off from powerful alliances.

Class oppression is a thing - Lieutenant McGraw IS from a lower class background, and even though the show doesn't get into it, I don't think his Irish roots can just be ignored in the context of the time period. Even if Flint himself isn't consciously engaged in class warfare, many of the pirates *are* and their varying levels of class consciousness (Billy's in particular, and also Vane's) are part of why they are willing to be convinced to support Flint's actions.

Relatedly, the show does show us some of those class politics specifically. It can be easy to ignore them because they are presented in the context of pirates, but I think it's useful to remember that pirates aren't, like...they're not vampires, they're not something you *are* they're something you do, and usually because you were forced to it for some reason by society. When Ashe is being reassured that the jury is stacked so that Flint will face execution regardless of what is in Abigail's diary, that is a judicial process showing its rotten core that needs to be cut out.

It's the same thing underpinning why Rhett felt he had a right to summarily execute Miranda, and why he didn't even get in trouble for it. Her changed position in society - her changed class position - changed her rights in the eyes of society.

I'll also just note that the citizens of Charles Town were happy to watch that spectacle of injustice - passively if not actively complicit in it. And the raids very much are terrorism - they don't use this word but they discuss this tactic explicitly and discuss its value to their cause. It's a valid tool in the arsenal of the weaker party in asymmetrical warfare.

tl;dr - 🤝 with op

*resistance doesn't have to be emotionally pure - it usually isn't! If Miranda's death served as the next catalyst in a series of events that lead Flint to being open to a broader approach to his personal war, turning it into a resistance movement, that doesn't actually undermine his actions. Literally better late than never. Most people have personal, individual motivations to their acts of resistance and, ultimately, fighting about motivations rather than looking at consequences of actions isn't helpful.

[bring-it-all-down]

I think the show does a pretty decent job in 2.10 of establishing resistance politics and differing levels of complicity in systems of violence, as described above.

First, when Flint is in the square awaiting his "trial," two children approach him with curiosity before they are swiftly turned away by their mother.

Then, Vane spells it out in his speech in defense of Flint: "These men convinced you that they speak for you. That the power you've given them is used in your interests. That the prisoner before you is your enemy and they your friends. For those of you who live to see tomorrow... know that you had a choice to see the truth and you let yourselves be convinced otherwise."

Yes, innocent children died that day, but it was a result of society failing them, of their parents failing them. Civilization's violence does not stop at the pirates or the slaves; it is all consuming. It robs children of their lives in two ways: it teaches them to see monsters and pieces of property where they should see fellow human beings, and it places them in the line of fire when those feeling the full weight of oppression begin to fight back.

[bring-it-all-down]

We think the haunted island is Skeleton Island, but it's actually Nassau.

Nassau is the place that nobody can leave, try as they might.

It's the place they're always reminded of their past and haunted by the prospect of their future.

Both Anne and Eleanor remark on its ability to control people's actions, to force them to do things they don't want to do.

As Mr. DeGroot says, "Skeleton Island is not on any chart, not on any civilized one, at any rate. emote. Well outside any established trade route" (4.08). Because Skeleton Island is unknown to civilization, and Black Sails is about the all-encompassing power of civilization, it cannot be the island that haunts the characters.

[somfte]

okay i've had quite a lot of rum and i'm truly not trying to start any shit but "Love, for flint, is inseparable from political alliance." was very confusing to me because it seemed like the opposite of my interpretation of flint and how he loves

i know the post was about eleanor but i don't see him as *loving* eleanor. he has some affection for her, and he is kind when she is in distress. but it's not LOVE. he cares about eleanor more than most random nassau people but at the end of the day... when he says "eleanor guthrie has been arrested" to silver it's just, like...facts and news of the day, he's not distraught about it. he's more focused on silver and silver being his quartermaster and that partnership, that's what that scene is about. the news about eleanor is just exposition

everyone we see him love, he does so regardless of whether they are politically aligned

miranda

thomas

silver

miranda goes behind his back and sends that letter, and after they fight about it he comes home with an apology book because he's ride or die even if they disagree

a core part of the london flashbacks is that james and thomas have very different ways of seeing the world, different political opinions, and he falls in love with him *because* of that. "Strange pairs, Lieutenant. They can achieve the most unexpected things."

he loves silver so much he lets silver point a gun at him and tell him that what flint wants (the path to his political goals) is a nightmare, and then he lets silver [REDACTED]

the way i read it is that flint loves with this whole ass EVEN IF it's politically inconvenient for him, and it often very much is

[bring-it-all-down]

To add to this, if I may: I think that Flint loves all of these people because they embody some sort of idealism compared to his rugged pragmatism. 

Miranda does that for him in the flashbacks in episode 2.03 via urging him to ignore shame and societal conceptions of propriety and instead live in accordance with what makes him happy (”...perhaps you're more concerned with whether or not people talk about what you and I do may be doing behind closed doors... than with what we actually are doing”). I think it’s part of why, after she betrays him by sending that letter, he can be furious with her, but he doesn’t contemplate leaving her. He is correct in that she has no real idea why they’re in the position in they’re in and why he therefore cannot return to society, but he still clings to her idealism around it. I think that as misguided as it is, he loves her for wanting more from life, wanting music and love and joy.

It’s even easier to see how Thomas’s idealism leads Flint to fall in love with him. It’s the whole point of the flashbacks. James McGraw, the pragmatic naval officer, becomes seduced by the idealistic Lord Thomas Hamilton. He says as much in his conversation with Hennessey in 2.02: “Actually, I went to one of those salons of his, the ones that half the Royal Society attend but most deny. Most of those men are pretenders, sir, attracted to his ideas because they make them feel like radicals. But Thomas... when he talks about the need to rethink things, systemic things, I think he truly believes what he's saying. And what's more, I'm afraid I might believe a good deal of it as well.”

And then we come to Silver. The real beginning of their partnership is in 2.01 when he convinces the crew to give Flint another shot at retrieving the Urca gold. He, again, leads Flint to another way out in 3.05 when he convinces him to talk to the Maroon Queen. After he’s successful, Flint says to Silver, “Thank you...for opening that door.” I think the argument can be made, then, that Silver represents an ideal for Flint...or at least Flint desperately wants Silver to do so.

The problem with this relationship is that Silver is not actually an idealist in the way that Miranda and Thomas are idealists, and as Flint becomes an idealist himself, he comes into conflict with Silver. As I see it, when Madi quotes “Cervantes” to Flint episode 4.03, “Too much sanity may be madness, and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be,” she is summarizing the journey Flint undergoes throughout this season. He is no longer the pragmatic naval officer bound to the orders of a superior, acting in concert with civilization. He has broken free of all of that and has become a real revolutionary figure. He has combined theory and practice; his fighting is not out of a desperate need for survival or a simple desire for revenge. Instead, it is in service of building a freer world, and he has resigned himself to dying for this cause. He is now the inspiration for the likes of Madi and the joined Maroon and pirate army. He no longer needs Silver because he is now his own idealist.

He still loves Silver, but it’s a love that cannot survive because it is not a love that he needs, and it is not a love that was born out of reality. He slowly comes to the realization that the Silver he built up in his mind is not the Silver standing before him. And Silver also realizes that he no longer serves that role for Flint, and now that Flint has become this great idealist, he has no need of Silver.

All this is to say that I don't think Flint can really love Eleanor because she's not an idealist. She's a pragmatist like he is. She offers him a partnership in that she can help him secure power on Nassau, but she can't offer him anything beyond Nassau, unlike these other three people.

[calamitys-child]

Flintmirannda sex scene actually does unravel me. Like. I know we joke about uninterested homosexual as woman rides his dick into the sunset but it's not that, really, it's two people who both love each other in a slightly fucked up deeply traumatised deeply deeply adoring and earnest way and they both know they're both pretending the other is someone else, it's a ritual summoning of Thomas that never works, and it's fucking unbearable but they both desire the other in part because they both desire Thomas and they both know that that's what they're both doing so they both know they carry within them, intimately, something dead that is adored, something alive that cannot be, and they both cry afterwards and pretend not to and I just. I just. I just.

[primarybufferpanel]

Tags by @sheliesshattered that I fully agree with:

[somfte]

[image description: tumblr tags that read:

#q #yes this #Black Sails #meta #James and Miranda #James and Miranda and Thomas #James Flint #Miranda Barlow #tho also #the conversation immediately after is about her knowing that he's angry at her #we never get to see a sex scene between them when they're HAPPY and UNITED #if there'd been a sex scene after the 'if we are to be partners let us truly be partners' scene #how different would it have been? #if there'd been sad consoling each other sex after the news came that Thomas was dead #how different would that look? #we see the ONE sex scene between them in which they are angry at each other about something very specific #and people try to read their ENTIRE relationship into it #OP is right but I also think that the scene is far too narrow and specific a moment in time #to be able to extrapolate everything about them and their love and their sex lives from it

/end description]

[bring-it-all-down]

I obviously don’t know what their sex life is outside of this moment, but it’s so clear to me that they’re having sex because James is terrified that Richard Guthrie has read the book’s inscription and will put together the fact that he is gay. And so he and Miranda have sex in the room next to Richard to throw him off the scent and reinforce the idea that they are a heterosexual couple.

[bring-it-all-down]

I'd just really love to witness a conversation between these two. The entirety of Luthen's speech fits Flint so well:

Calm. Kindness. Kinship. Love. I’ve given up all chance at inner peace. I’ve made my mind a sunless space. I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote 15 years ago from which there’s only one conclusion, I’m damned for what I do. My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight, they’ve set me on a path from which there is no escape. I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost and by the time I looked down there was no longer any ground beneath my feet. What is my sacrifice? I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see. And the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror or an audience or the light of gratitude. So what do I sacrifice? Everything!

Just change 15 for 10 and you've got Flint.



[komsomolka]

what i find the most insulting about people insisting flint finally 'found peace' so it's a 'happy ending' for him is insinuation that his anti colonial goals meant nothing to him and he doesn't care about them anymore since he satisfied one of his personal wishes?? to believe that you have to completely miss the point of flints whole character arc.

[bring-it-all-down]

It's absolutely brilliant that Black Sails begins with the hunt for a book that's supposed to fill in the gaps of Flint's plan, but which Silver steals from under his nose. It's not a work of fiction, but a book detailing precise facts concerning actual events. Flint's story, as we are introduced to it, begins with the practical and real, but by the time it's over, it's left in the hands of Silver, who toes the line between fact and fiction, truth and narrative.

[b1uetrees]

Maybe one of the sadder aspects of Flint's character to me is the how much he cares of what others think of him, and what legacy he leaves behind and yes, he's willing to do awful things if he thinks they're necessary, but at the same time he agonizes over being perceived as that monster, and Silver was right when he said that it must be awful being him because it is and this is just one of the reasons why

[bring-it-all-down]

Something that’s super interesting in Flint’s arc is the way his emphasis on legacy shifts. In England, he’s desperate for his peers and his superiors to not think him a monster or an outsider in any way. He rightfully panics when he is rejected by Hennessey, the closest person he’s had to a father. But starting in the finale of season 2, he embraces his monstrosity and utilizes it to entrench fear in the hearts and minds of those very people he was initially so desperate to not alienate. Yet in cultivating this legacy of monstrosity within civilization, he is equally desperate for his new peers––his fellow pirates––to no longer see him as a monster. He needs them to know that he will do brutal things, but he does not revel in them. Instead, he ensures that as many of his allies survive as possible.

[bring-it-all-down]

Tag nine (9) people you’d like to know better

Tagged by @pineapple-split.

Last Song: Does Concerning Hobbits count as a song? If so, that. If not, I have no idea.

Currently Watching: Nothing, at the moment. I just re-watched Andor, though, and it was as good as always.

Currently Reading: The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist. It’s a brilliantly thorough historical account of the interconnectedness of slavery and capitalism, emphasizing the role chattel slavery in America played in establishing capitalism as the dominant global economic and political order. He focuses on how the abolition of the global slave trade necessitated the creation of a robust internal slave trade, the effects of which still shape the socio-political structures and relationships within America. It’s an incredible piece of scholarship, but boy is it a tough read at times.

Current Obsession: I don’t know if something so recent can count as an obsession, but I just watched Nimona last night and have been thinking about it a lot today. If that’s too recent to qualify, I’ll go with baseball, my forever obsession.

[bring-it-all-down]

What’s so interesting about the idea that Eleanor deserved better than her ending is that it’s both the ending she deserved and the only ending she could have had, and *that* is why she deserved better. 

She was a woman born of great wealth amassed in part or totality through participating in the slave trade. Her claim to power in Nassau rested on her last name. She repeatedly chose to secure that power through siding with empire over freedom, and in this quest for power, she sowed the seeds of her destruction. She was a queer white woman whose reliance on her whiteness and her wealth amassed through that whiteness put her at odds with every other queer character in the show, as well as the notion of queerness itself. She sold off parts of herself until she was a husk of the woman we first met, and it was not enough to save herself from the fate foretold to her by her father, from the fate that had met her mother.

She got exactly what was coming to her, and yet her ending, deserved though it was, still was tragic. It was not tragic because she was done wrong by the narrative, but because everyone deserves better than life under capitalism. The entire economic and political structure of capitalism necessitates the selling of parts of ourselves in doomed quests to live lives of material prosperity. It requires endless structural and personal violence. It requires the denial of fundamental parts of ourselves, such as Eleanor’s queerness. There is not one person alive who would be less happy without capitalism.

Eleanor’s arc is thus both cathartic and a deeply cautionary tale.

[b1uetrees]

What's kind of great about the way Flint is written is how we first see him as a captain, a leader, and an utterly selfish one at that; he has his goal of retrieving the gold, and it's the only thing that matters, and he pulls of some tyrannical shit to get to it. But little by little you realize that his megalomania doesn't come from a need to see himself as this great leader; he doesn't want glory for himself, he wants a future for Nassau (whatever that means and it's also interesting how the very idea of what that future might entail also changes during the show). And what I find really interesting is how, despite being in a position of a leader, Flint strikes me as more of a follower. Follower in the sense that his commitment is to other people, and not really himself. Before he was cast out, he and Thomas worked on a plan to secure Nassau, a plan in which Flint wouldn't be the governor. And what gets him out of his S3 funk is Silver and Madi, and I think it's very telling that he sees them as the future, not himself. And tbh I'd say this is one of his best qualities. His dedication to his goal is such that he's willing to step back and relinquish some of his authority in order to achieve what he sees as necessary.

(and you know. The james/thomas/miranda and flint/silver/madi parallel of it all.)

[vamp1rate]

been thinking about the recurring theme in black sails of the violence that exists specifically within the context of civilization, and marion guthrie’s acceptance of the answer that the solution to her story would be to kill the cat

been thinking about the careening episode from season one, how morley has such distrust for most of his crew, but seems to have some affection for betsy. how he promised to bring a barnacle for her, and when randall pointed out that he’d forgotten, despite most likely being exhausted, morley went back to get one.

been thinking about how randall risked his life and lost his leg because he couldn’t chance betsy getting crushed under the Walrus.

been thinking about how these are the men labelled monsters, the ones civilization has separated itself from, and they wouldn’t even think of solving that problem by killing the cat

[bring-it-all-down]

This is an excellent comparison!

It also speaks to how individualized civilization is––killing the cat is a single act of violence that solves the problem. There is no thought given to Joseph’s past or future violence and how killing the cat that Richard cared for will affect Richard. It’s a simple solution to a complex structure of power and personal relationships. Meanwhile, in saving Randall from meeting Betsy’s fate, Flint and Silver unleash a fraught series of events that results in Silver also losing part of his leg. In that sense, it would have been easier to let Randall die, but that was never really given serious consideration.

The cat story also spells out Max’s future in Nassau under civilization. She tells Anne that she used to be that cat pawing at the windows. She would stand outside her owner’s house and wish for nothing more than to be inside it, to feel its comfort. Marion Guthrie, acting as her grandson, Richard, feeds Max in giving her the opportunity to maintain some sort of power in Nassau if she agrees to hand it over to civilization. Max does so because it’s been her dream from the beginning, but it can’t end happily for her. Eventually, somebody (Woodes Rogers, if we follow history) will come along and drown the damn cat.

[hrtgallant]

I like how black sails asserts that a person's identity stems mostly from their connection to other people. one day I may elaborate

[bring-it-all-down]

The notion that race, gender, and sexuality are each social relations rather than biological fixtures is so important for understanding the world, and I think you’re right that Black Sails expresses this notion in a variety of ways.

This theory of social relations has been pointed out by so many scholars of race, gender, and sexuality, so I’ll just briefly mention one such person because I’m sure other people know of many more examples.

Lesbian scholar of gender and sexuality, Gayle S. Rubin, makes this point in “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality.” She writes:

It is impossible to think with any clarity about the politics of race or gender as long as these are thought of as biological entities rather than as social constructs. Similarly, sexuality is impervious to political analysis as long as it is primarily conceived as a biological phenomenon or an aspect of individual psychology. Sexuality is as much a human product as are diets, methods of transportation, systems of etiquette, forms of labour, types of entertainment, processes of production, and modes of oppression. Once sex is understood in terms of social analysis and historical understanding, a more realistic politics of sex becomes possible...Like gender, sexuality is political. It is organized into systems of power, which reward and encourage some individuals and activities, while punishing and suppressing others. Like the capitalist organization of labour and its distribution of rewards and powers, the modern sexual system has been the object of political struggle since it emerged and as it has evolved. But if the disputes between labour and capital are mystified, sexual conflicts are completely camouflaged.

Here, Rubin argues that both sexuality and gender are the product of structural relationships in society rather than innate characteristics, and thus to understand them, it is essential to examine their role in reinforcing systems of power.

In essence, being a man or a woman or nonbinary or gay or straight or Black or white means nothing outside of how each category shapes our relationships with our communities and their apparatuses.

[bring-it-all-down]

I will forever be tormented by Jack telling Lydia to “put down the newspaper and pick up a book” when his biggest interaction with books is him critiquing Woodes Rogers’s book to Rogers’s face.

[calamitys-child]

MY BEAUTIFUL WIFE THE LIBBY APP WHO BRINGS ME GIFTS OF NONA

[calamitys-child]

GIRL YOUR TIMING IS ATROCIOUS BUT ILL LOVE YOU FOREVER

[bring-it-all-down]

I’ve been thinking a lot about Vane’s remark to Flint in 3.08 while they’re in Miranda’s house: “I can understand a woman’s desire for domesticity, but a man’s? That, I can’t understand.”

There’s obviously some degree of sexism in play, especially due to the influence Blackbeard has had on him, but I think that conclusion is far too simplistic.

This remark comes after Vane’s spent the season watching the once-independent Eleanor in his eyes recede into a life of domesticity in order to retain some semblance of power in Nassau. Even from afar, he sees what this has done to her and why she has done it to herself. In his eyes, then, submitting to domesticity is submitting to civilization. 

He makes this point explicit after Flint questions his initial statement. In response, he tells Flint: “had I that instinct [for domesticity], I would resist it with every inch of will I could muster. For that is the single most dangerous weapon they possess, the one they tempt. ‘Give us your submission, and we will give you the comfort you need.’ No, I can think of no measure of comfort worth that price.” 

His beheading of Richard Guthrie was a misguided attempt to set Eleanor free from this need for civlization’s domesticity, and the result of it has made Eleanor cling even more tightly to domesticity.

So his statement is not just “women are weak and men are strong,” but rather an assessment of how civilization forces women to give up their power and why women would choose this option.