Stede and Ed are both a Nietzsche-ian fish (ofmd season 2 spoilers)
I’m having a massive brain rot so stay with me pls
The people who watched Hannibal are probably aware of the term “Nietzsche-ian fish”. I did my research back then to understand what Hannibal meant exactly, so what if I tell you that Stede and Ed are also a “Nietzsche-ian fish”?
In Season 2 Episode 5, Ed and Stede are having this conversation:
Ed: Sometimes it’s nice to be patient. And wait. You can’t catch your fish unless the fish wants to be caught.
Stede: And you are the fish?
Ed: We are the fish, I guess. I think?
Stede: Okay.
And in Season 2 Episode 7:
Ed: You said it was a good fish.
Stede: It was a fine fish. It was… whatever.
Ed: Whatever? You don’t want to take my fishing seriously, fine.
Stede: Come on, it’s not about that.
Ed: It’s everything about that. It’s everything about fishing!
Ed: Fishermen and pirates are nothing alike.
Stede: You are a coward!
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In “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, Zarathustra at some point describes himself fishing. He believes that only the worthy fish will be caught. He doesn’t have time for net-fishing, because with this fishing technique there is a high risk of catching bad fish. But with his own way, that he calls “angle-fishing”, he won’t. He uses this technique: an angled rod and bait. With the best bait he will allure “the strangest human fish”. Only in high mountains, Zarathustra says, can one fish effectively for the “strangest” and “finest” “human fish,” for altitude requires an effort that only the finest can deliver. He says that other Gods might want to “cast their nets into the human sea,” but he himself chooses to fish with bait and hooks—not nets— and only in mountain lakes.
Net-fishing is not selective (just like farmed fish is not selective), unlike angling. Not all fish are worthy, and in order to catch only the “finest” fish, one must not catch the helpless and passive fish as in a net. On the contrary, we want a process where the fish chooses the fisherman in an active way.
Now, let me explain a bit what I mean by farmed fish. A farmed fish is defined by its captivity, the only environment known to it is the one it was put in, it was meant to be there and be caught. Therefore, a farmed fish has no free will. But a sea fish is free and is able to make decisions. It’s more flavorful and firm because it's experiencing the world only as relevant to its own existence. A farmed fish has limited abilities, its world is not the truth, but rather something that someone else decided for it. But a wild fish is able to explore, to live, to make decisions. To experience the world without anyone intruding into its existence.
This is interesting when we think of Stede and Ed. Stede only managed to meet Ed because he escaped his environment, he escaped the “farm” he was put in and decided to explore the world, to make decisions, to live. Or better, Ed met Stede because Stede became part of the wild sea. Stede was ready to be caught on a fisherman’s bait the moment he left the environment he was in and became a wild fish.
It’s also interesting to note how Ed joined Stede’s world. How they shared their worlds to each other and got to experience something entirely, got to experience both of their realities until they created their own. Ed’s life is not the way it was before and Stede’s life is not the way it was before. But both of their realities exist in a world they created.
The fisherman and the fish belong to each other. One finds those that belong to one by fishing and being fished. So one must follow one’s taste in both senses of the word: our taste will lead us to those we have a taste for, just as well as our taste will attract those that have a taste for us. That leads to a healing relationship of shared presence. They were both willing to fish and to be fished, if they weren’t they wouldn't end up meeting each other. Both need a healing relationship after everything they’ve been through, and it’s important to keep in mind they were the ones causing each other pain. In “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” Nietzsche writes: “And whatever in all the seas belongs to me, my actual me in all things – fish that out for me, bring that up to me – that’s what I’m waiting for, I the most spiteful of all fishermen.”
A fisherman spends a long time until he catches a good fish, and an active fish takes its time until a bait seems worthy enough. A process that is long and even painful.
Nietzsche insists that there is only one appropriate way for someone to fish. The few who can be fished must be selected according to two criteria.
they must be active in their own capture. Net-caught fish does not get caught as a result of their behaviour, only as a result of their presence (that’s why I said that farmed fish has no free will. Farmed fish is passive and unworthy). Nietzsche-ian fishing is intended to heal solitude.
They will be chosen according to their tastes. Only a select few will be attracted to the bait Nietzsche and Zarathustra uses.
Angle-fishing in mountain waters (this is where Zarathustra fishes) translates into the selection of superior men, and therefore allows the solitary philosopher to gain “company”. Nietzsche is clear: bad company is not a company at all. The company he seeks is a company of equals. It is because the fish eats the bait that the angler eats the fish. For Nietzsche, angler and bait ate one and the same. The angler places pieces of himself on the hook, pieces of the self that he is. The new self that he is.
The angler is not fully passive either. In the same way as the fish’s activity relies on the angler’s passivity and vice-versa, we may see that the relations between fish and angler are constantly reversed. So are the relations between Stede and Ed. They charge from being the fisherman to being the fish and vice versa, therefore they are the same.
This mutual reduction, of course, is but an echo of the mutual encounter of the fisherman with the fish, and indeed, their mutual catching. Only the superior shall be attracted to this bait. The idea of ownership, which Zarathustra reiterates, doesn’t suggest that one subdues the fish they catch but rather, that the kindred spirits naturally belong to each other without being reduced to each other. For in the same way as one may be affected with “habits” that “do not belong to” one, one may be distinct from what belongs to them.
Ed says that they are both the fish, and Stede agrees. They both agreed that they were caught by each other. They were both patient and waited for each other no matter how painful it was. They remained and when they were ready they were caught on each other’s bait.
When Stede agreed with Ed that the fish was “a fine fish” (he also called it beautiful in the first conversation), after taking all of this in consideration, I believe that he basically agreed that it was all worth it. All the waiting, all the fighting, all the wounds. It all happened for a reason and that reason was for them to be ready to be caught. Their relationship wouldn’t work if one of them were to pull his rod out of the wild waters. Their relationship wouldn’t work if Stede were to remain captured in his old life and stop looking for a worthy bait to eat (I dare to say that his old life was given to him because of the environment he grew up in, he was meant to get married, he was meant to live his life, therefore his wife was a net-caught fish), or if Ed were to remain in his dark place as Blackbeard without acknowledging his feelings and his needs.
But then Stede says that it was “whatever”. It was at that point in their relationship that Stede started changing. He wasn’t feeling like he was enough so he tried to become what Blackbeard was because Ed was all he ever wanted/wanted to be. This is exactly what Stede was to Ed too. So when they started changing they weren’t attracted to each other. Stede was looking for Ed and Ed was looking for Stede. They were with themselves for long enough, and when their roles reversed (I’m not talking about their roles as the fish and the fisherman, these are always changing) they felt like they weren’t good together. They weren’t looking for someone like them, they were looking for someone “strange”, for someone to have their taste, for someone to want them for what they were. We could see from the beginning that Ed was getting excited by Stede’s reality, he was showing his interest in the books, the clothes, when everyone else didn’t feel the same way. And Stede never saw Ed the way others saw him, always appreciating his reality and wanting to be part of it. And by the end of season two they managed to balance everything out, they returned to themselves but in a reality they created just for them, where they could exist together.
Then Ed says “you don’t want to take my fishing seriously” and that I believe that right there Ed thought that he was wrong. That Stede couldn’t take seriously everything they went through, that he wasn’t taking seriously the harm that he caused him, that he wasn’t taking seriously all the time he waited for him. When Stede left to go back to his wife (when him and Ed were supposed to leave together) it was proof to Ed that Stede wasn’t taking their relationship seriously. Like Ed says, “it’s everything about fishing”, it’s everything about the time they put into this, it’s everything about not reducing themselves in front of the other, it’s everything about what they did and how they were drawn to each other. It’s everything about not changing themselves and remaining the way they were.
Ed then says that “pirates and fishermen are nothing alike”, and even though I’m still not sure what it means exactly, I believe he’s referring to their nature. A fisherman needs to be calm, to not talk much, to be patient, to cast his rod and simply wait for something worthy to come to him. A pirate is loud, he will attack, he will steal. A pirate will forcibly take what doesn’t belong to him, he won’t wait for something special. A pirate will cast a net and take whatever is caught in there, but a fisherman will wait for what belongs to him to eat the one bait he made for it. I believe that’s the main difference.
Nietzsche used fish to describe loneliness. A loneliness that will be healed, gone with the help of a worthy companion. There is a Nietzsche saying that I really like: “My solitariness which, as on very high mountains, has often made me gasp for breath and lose blood, is now at least a solitude for two.” In the last episode we are shown just that, a solitude for two, while carrying the wounds and memories with them (I’d like to use Izzy’s grave for that, a constant reminder of the life they are leaving behind).
Their roles are constantly changing, and they have been playing with that since season one. In 1x04 they changed their clothes, Ed became Stede and Stede became Blackbeard. In that episode Stede was the one to give Ed marmalade and in 2x07 it was Ed that served marmalade to Stede. The scene in the moonlight is, I believe, the perfect example. In 1x05 Stede said to Ed “you wear fine things well” and then Ed said the same thing to Stede in 2x05. In 1x08 we see Stede on a boat and on his way to find Ed, and in 2x08 we see Ed on a boat and on his way to find Stede.
So, in conclusion, they are both the fish and that means that they are both the fisherman, both of them searching for each other until they found themselves in a solitude for two.
