A critique I've heard of season two is that we’ve lost a lot of our symbolic objects, archetypes, and motifs. Season one gave us the lighthouse, the kraken, the red silk and the unicorn, the seagull, the auxiliary closet, Gnossienne no. 5, Pinocchio…
And then I think back to Samba sharing a quote from writer Alex Sherman during the ECCC panel:
“Season one is Stede going from a puppet to a real boy, and season two is Stede becomes a man.”
And that’s it, isn’t it? The transformation from object to subject, from something that has things done to it versus someone with agency. We see that transformation throughout season two. Almost every significant object is discarded, every symbol realized in flesh.
The process starts at the end of season one with the throwing away of all of Stede’s things. So much has been written about Stede’s potential response to that act, and so many folks (myself included) held on to the idea that perhaps Ed kept a little bit, maybe the auxiliary closet. Stede literally no longer cares about those things. He originally brought all the things he loved with him to sea because he didn’t have significant personal relationships. That’s why we hear Gnossienne no. 5 as he goes through the empty cabin pulling out all of the knives. The discordant love motif shows how his priorities have changed, how his love has transformed.
The red silk is gone as well, but instead we have Stede, real and in the flesh wearing the exact same color, clutched in Ed’s hand in the moonlight.
The kraken, a giant monster capable of rending a ship in two? Ed becomes that, literally, disassembling the Revenge to sail her into a storm and destroy her.
The lighthouse? A warning, Ned Low in his silver suit, a beacon in the dark warning Stede of what he will become if he continues on his course.
The unicorn, the destroyed masthead, literally becomes Izzy, a man taken apart and rebuilt piece by piece out of the parts of Stede Bonnet to become a beloved and respected member of the crew, and perhaps one of the strongest examples of self-actualization so far.
The attempts at reversing the process are demonstrated to be ineffective. The catalyst is when Buttons becomes a seagull, which shows Ed that the process of change is possible—that someone can become something or someone else. And he tries, he throws away his leathers, dons Button’s old jacket, tries to become an archetype. Stede tries to become a “real pirate”, despite the warning from Low. Even in Ed’s vision of Stede as a merman, Stede is being reduced to the role of symbol—a mythical being rather than a very real, very flawed man. They are both still trying to be the object when they need to be the subject. They need to take action, to realize themselves. And it’s a gruesome process. Jim’s version of Pinnochio is about the horrific transmogrification from wood into flesh and the horrors that need to be faced in order to make that transition.
We, the audience, are experiencing discomfort in this process. We are being held right up against the lighthouse lamp, and it burns. This is the emotional equivalent of body horror. It feels like all of our beloved belongings are being thrown overboard, but I promise they aren’t.
dailybridgerton
jbbartram-illu
pixelskylines
baratheonpilled
ellievsbear
janainaart
andulkaphoto
yousharknotpass
areudirty
