In 3x03, in the speech read by Hornigold and written by Woodes Rogers, the biblical parable of the prodigal son is used to appeal to the pirates of Nassau and invite them to accept pardons. The speech addresses them as wayward children who have rejected the parent empire. In essence, the pirates are in conflict with the imperial Father and with the patriarchal western civlisation in general. It is the civilisation represented at the beginning of the same episode by "the son of the wealthiest man in St Kitts", a despicable racist merchant who presides over the exchange of the Urca gold for pearls and of whom Anne says, "A world where he is the civilised one and we're the savages is a wolrd I'm never going to understand". A bit later, she asks Max why she would want to live "in a world that says that pig is a man to be respected? A world that wants its sons to become that?" The mention of fathers and sons in connection to the St Kitts merchant (twice) again implies that the civilisation Anne and other pirates are opposed to is a patriarchal one. Patriarchal ideology is the basis for its imperialist conquests, racism, misogyny and heteronormativity.
While Max is aware of all this, she still wants to be reintegrated into such a civilisation, to be embraced and acknowledged by the imperial Father. In the story she tells about her childhood, Max wishes to change places with the little white girl, not because the room in which she danced and sang was comfortable, richly furnished or clean, but because the other girl was loved. Max, on the other hand, wasn't even recognized as her father's daughter. This notion, that there are some children to whom the father is completely indifferent, whom he deems unworthy of his love and whose existence he does not even acknowledge, is also expressed in the same episode by one of Flint's crew members. During their ordeal in the doldrums he says: "We are no longer worthy even of the good Lord's anger and must endure his indifference... In this place, He is absent." The father who rejects his children in this case is the heavenly Father, but all these patriarchal figures seem to be interchangeable in Black Sails, and institutional religion (in the character of pastor Lambrick, for instance) is presented as one of the pillars of social order and its dominant ideology.
The conflict between Thomas and his father is based on a somewhat different pattern. In this case, the son shows sympathy for the outsiders - for the unloved, rejected Other - and in this way provokes his father's rage. Symbolically, it is the same pattern as in the story of the four-year old Richard Guthrie who takes pity on a hungry cat and gets punished by his father. Another version of the same conflict we find in the dynamic between James and Hennessy, as James also becomes a disobedient son by siding with Thomas. Even though Thomas is an aristocrat, he can still be viewed as an outsider, covertly if not openly condemned and rejected by the society. Half of Whitehall considers him mad, his unorthodox marraige and sex life are a subject of gossip ("he may even let you fuck his wife") and politically he is viewed as a dangerous radical. In this sense, when James expresses his support for Thomas, he likewise "betrays" his father, Hennessy, out of love for the rejected Other.
Interestingly, though, unlike so many other narratives created by the mass culture, Black Sails does not end with the reconciliation between Father and son. The imperial Father is not defeated - but at least, it is not a story of how a penitent son returns to him and receives his pardon. Instead, it ends with the reunion of two disobedient sons, James and Thomas.
