stressed, obsessed, and figuring out the rest

Sabrina | any pronouns | bi 💖💜💙 greyro 💚🩶🤍 genderqueer 💜🤍💚 | master assassin of the in-betweens

[illuminated-in-darkness]

Okay, so like everyone else I have Feelings about Flint’s freedom in the darkness speech, and I think I’m finally gonna try to put some of it into words.

I remember the first time I watched it I was just - so incredibly moved, and it resonated so deeply in me... but I also felt like I recognized this? Like it was beautiful but also familiar, as though I already “knew” this and it was just being brought to my attention again.

A couple months ago I finally realized why.

Black Sails is incredible, and I think part of the reason this speech is so powerful to me is because of the ways it relates to Black Feminist theory, specifically Audre Lorde’s essay “Poetry is Not a Luxury” in the book Sister Outsider.

The essay talks about how darkness is not only not bad, but the source of power and possibility. How, through poetry, we can name the feelings and experiences that are within us and which resist the dominant systems and ideologies that oppress marginalized groups. How that which is not valued by european consciousness is what can be most valuable in that resistance.

These are some of the specific lines from Lorde’s essay and Flint’s speech that I feel were really deeply tied together (emphasis mine):

“These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown strong through that darkness. Within these deep places, each one of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling. The woman's place of power within each of us is neither white nor surface; it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep.” (Lorde)

“Because in the darkness, there be dragons. But it isn't true. We can prove that it isn't true. In the dark, there is discovery, there is possibility.” (Black Sails)

.

“[Poetry] is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought.” (Lorde)

“In the dark, there is discovery, there is possibility. There is freedom in the dark, once someone has illuminated it.” (Black Sails)

This next section is long but I feel like really matches the speech in a lot of ways, so I broke it into three sections with the matching Black Sails sections underneath (emphasis mine):

.

“For within living structures defined by profit, by linear power, by institutional dehumanization, our feelings were not meant to survive. Kept around as unavoidable adjuncts or pleasant pastimes, feelings were expected to kneel to thought as women were expected to kneel to men.

“They paint the world full of shadows, and then tell their children to stay close to the light. Their light. Their reasons, their judgments.

But women have survived. As poets. And there are no new pains. We have felt them all already. We have hidden that fact in the same place where we have hidden our power.

Because in the darkness, there be dragons. But it isn't true. We can prove that it isn't true.

They surface in our dreams, and it is our dreams that point the way to freedom. Those dreams are made realizable through our poems that give us the strength and courage to see, to feel, to speak, and to dare.” (Lorde)

In the dark, there is discovery, there is possibility. There is freedom in the dark, once someone has illuminated it.” (Black Sails)

.

I just - when I first read this essay several years ago I remember feeling like I didn’t fully understand it, and yet being deeply moved by it, a visceral feeling in the bottom of my chest. Flint’s speech moved me in much the same way. We owe so much to Black Feminism, and although I doubt Jonathan Steinberg and Robert Levine were thinking of Audre Lorde when they wrote the speech, I find the connections between them really meaningful.

~

I didn’t find a way to connect this to Flint’s speech, but I think of this quote from “Poetry is Not a Luxury” a lot, and so I’ll leave it here (emphasis mine):

“The white fathers told us: I think, therefore I am. The Black mother within each of us - the poet - whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free.” (Lorde)

.

You can read the essay here (I know it’s a genius.com link but I couldn’t find anything else that was accessible without some kind of university credentials). I also wrote a short post on Audre Lorde and this essay for this feminist research instagram account.

[illuminated-in-darkness]

Charles Vane | Proper Pirate - E Black Sails Musical Parallels | XXIV. XXVIII. XXIX. XXX. XXXII. XXXIII. XXXVIII.

music breakdown note: The music in this parallel is made up of parts A and B. Parts C and D are each a different extension of part A. E is a tease of A (only the first two notes of part A)

All the scenes in this group have E. The scene in XXXVIII also includes A. The scenes in XXIX and XXXII also include B.

music variation note: The music in XXIV, XXX, and the second and third scenes in XXXIII is played on hurdy gurdy. The scene in XXVIII, the first scene in XXXIII, and XXXVIII are played on strings. The scene in XXIX is played on low strings. XXIV is played in a higher key. XXXVIII is played in a lower key.

AB | A | B | C | D | E

I spent a year rewatching Black Sails and tracking all the bits of music that repeated at any point during the show, and my findings are reinforcing that Bear McCreary is a genius and this show should have been called 'parallels that will kill you over and over again'* (tag | chronological)

[illuminated-in-darkness]

Charles Vane | Proper Pirate - D (Part 3) Black Sails Musical Parallels | XXXIII. XXXIV.

music breakdown note: The music in this parallel is made up of parts A and B. Parts C and D are each a different extension of part A. E is a tease of A (only the first two notes of part A)

All the scenes in this group have D. The scene in XXXIV also includes A.

music variation note: The music in the scene in XXXIII is played on strings and in a lower key. The scene in XXXIV is played on hurdy gurdy.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

AB | A | B | C | D | E

I spent a year rewatching Black Sails and tracking all the bits of music that repeated at any point during the show, and my findings are reinforcing that Bear McCreary is a genius and this show should have been called 'parallels that will kill you over and over again'* (tag | chronological)

[illuminated-in-darkness]

Charles Vane | Proper Pirate - D (Part 2) Black Sails Musical Parallels | XIX. XXII. XXVII.

music breakdown note: The music in this parallel is made up of parts A and B. Parts C and D are each a different extension of part A. E is a tease of A (only the first two notes of part A)

All the scenes in this group have D. All the scenes in this set also include AB. The first scene in XIX also includes C.

music variation note: The music in the first scene in XIX and in XXII is played on strings. The second scene in XIX is on low strings. The scene in XXVII is on hurdy gurdy.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

AB | A | B | C | D | E

I spent a year rewatching Black Sails and tracking all the bits of music that repeated at any point during the show, and my findings are reinforcing that Bear McCreary is a genius and this show should have been called 'parallels that will kill you over and over again'* (tag | chronological)

[illuminated-in-darkness]

Charles Vane | Proper Pirate - D (Part 1) Black Sails Musical Parallels | IV. V. VII. VIII.

music breakdown note: The music in this parallel is made up of parts A and B. Parts C and D are each a different extension of part A. E is a tease of A (only the first two notes of part A)

All the scenes in this group have D. The scenes in IV, V, and the first two scenes of VII also include AB. The fourth scene in VII and the scene in VIII also include B. The scenes in IV, V, and the first scene VII also include C.

music variation note: The music for this parallel is played on the hurdy gurdy for all the scenes in this set. The third scene in VII is in a higher key.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

AB | A | B | C | D | E

I spent a year rewatching Black Sails and tracking all the bits of music that repeated at any point during the show, and my findings are reinforcing that Bear McCreary is a genius and this show should have been called 'parallels that will kill you over and over again'* (tag | chronological)

[illuminated-in-darkness]

Charles Vane | Proper Pirate - C (Part 2) Black Sails Musical Parallels | XI. XIX. XXIV.

music breakdown note: The music in this parallel is made up of parts A and B. Parts C and D are each a different extension of part A. E is a tease of A (only the first two notes of part A)

All the scenes in this group have C. All scenes in this set also include AB. The scene in XIX also includes D.

music variation note: The music in the first scene in XI is played on harpsichord (or similar). The second scene in XI and the scene in XIX are on strings. XXIV is on low strings.

Part 1 | Part 2

AB | A | B | C | D | E

I spent a year rewatching Black Sails and tracking all the bits of music that repeated at any point during the show, and my findings are reinforcing that Bear McCreary is a genius and this show should have been called 'parallels that will kill you over and over again'* (tag | chronological)

[illuminated-in-darkness]

Charles Vane | Proper Pirate - C (Part 1) Black Sails Musical Parallels | IV. V. VI. VII. VIII.

music breakdown note: The music in this parallel is made up of parts A and B. Parts C and D are each a different extension of part A. E is a tease of A (only the first two notes of part A)

All the scenes in this group have C. The scenes in IV, second scene of V, VI, VII, and VIII also include AB. The first scene in V also includes B. The scene in IV and second scene in V, and VII also include D.

music variation note: The music in all of the scenes in this set is played on hurdy gurdy, except for the first scene in V, which is played on strings.

Part 1 | Part 2

AB | A | B | C | D | E

I spent a year rewatching Black Sails and tracking all the bits of music that repeated at any point during the show, and my findings are reinforcing that Bear McCreary is a genius and this show should have been called 'parallels that will kill you over and over again'* (tag | chronological)

[illuminated-in-darkness]

Charles Vane | Proper Pirate - B Black Sails Musical Parallels | IX. XVIII. XIX. XXIX. XXXII. XXXIII.

music breakdown note: The music in this parallel is made up of parts A and B. Parts C and D are each a different extension of part A. E is a tease of A (only the first two notes of part A)

All the scenes in this group have B. XXIX and XXXII also include E.

music variation note: The music in the scenes in IX and XVIII is played on hurdy gurdy. XVIII is missing the first and fourth note of the B part. The scene in XIX is on clavichord (or similar) and is missing the third note. The scenes in XXIX and XXXIII are on low brass (or similar). XXIX is missing the fifth note. The scene in XXXII is on strings, and is missing the first and fifth note.

AB | A | B | C | D | E

I spent a year rewatching Black Sails and tracking all the bits of music that repeated at any point during the show, and my findings are reinforcing that Bear McCreary is a genius and this show should have been called 'parallels that will kill you over and over again'* (tag | chronological)

[illuminated-in-darkness]

Charles Vane | Proper Pirate - A (Part 2) Black Sails Musical Parallels | XXXII. XXXIII. XXXIV. XXXVIII.

music breakdown note: The music in this parallel is made up of parts A and B. Parts C and D are each a different extension of part A. E is a tease of A (only the first two notes of part A)

All the scenes in this group have A. XXXIV also includes D, and XXXVIII also includes E.

music variation note: The music in the scene in XXXII is played on a woodwind (or similar). All three scenes in XXXIII and the scene in XXXVIII are on strings. The scene in XXXIV is on hurdy gurdy. The second scene in XXXIII is missing the first note of the theme. The third scene in XXXIII has a different harmony over the third note of the theme.

Part 1 | Part 2

AB | A | B | C | D | E

I spent a year rewatching Black Sails and tracking all the bits of music that repeated at any point during the show, and my findings are reinforcing that Bear McCreary is a genius and this show should have been called 'parallels that will kill you over and over again'* (tag | chronological)

[illuminated-in-darkness]

Charles Vane | Proper Pirate - A (Part 1) Black Sails Musical Parallels | IV. XX. XXIV. XXV. XXVI. XXIX. XXXI.

music breakdown note: The music in this parallel is made up of parts A and B. Parts C and D are each a different extension of part A. E is a tease of A (only the first two notes of part A)

All the scenes in this group have A.

music variation note: The music in the scenes in IV, XXV, and XXVI is played on hurdy gurdy. The scenes in XX and XXXI are on low strings. The first part of the scene in XXIV is on piano, the second part of that scene is on strings. The scene in XXIX is played on distorted guitar.

Part 1 | Part 2

AB | A | B | C | D | E

I spent a year rewatching Black Sails and tracking all the bits of music that repeated at any point during the show, and my findings are reinforcing that Bear McCreary is a genius and this show should have been called 'parallels that will kill you over and over again'* (tag | chronological)

[illuminated-in-darkness]

Charles Vane | Proper Pirate - AB (Part 5) Black Sails Musical Parallels | XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXVII.

music breakdown note: The music in this parallel is made up of parts A and B. Parts C and D are each a different extension of part A. E is a tease of A (only the first two notes of part A)

All the scenes in this group have A, B. The second scene in XXIV also includes C. The first scene in XXVII also includes D.

music variation note: The music in the scene in XXII is played on clavichord (or similar). The scene in XXIII is on flute. Both scenes in XXIV and the second scene in XXVII are on low strings. The first scene in XXVII is on hurdy gurdy.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

AB | A | B | C | D | E

I spent a year rewatching Black Sails and tracking all the bits of music that repeated at any point during the show, and my findings are reinforcing that Bear McCreary is a genius and this show should have been called 'parallels that will kill you over and over again'* (tag | chronological)

[illuminated-in-darkness]

Charles Vane | Proper Pirate - AB (Part 4) Black Sails Musical Parallels | XIX. XXII.

music breakdown note: The music in this parallel is made up of parts A and B. Parts C and D are each a different extension of part A. E is a tease of A (only the first two notes of part A)

All the scenes in this group have A, B. The second scene in XIX also includes C. The second and fourth scenes in XIX and the second scene in XXII also include D.

music variation note: The music in the second and third scenes in XIX is played on strings. The first and fourth scenes in XIX are on strings an octave lower. Both scenes in XXII are on hurdy gurdy.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

AB | A | B | C | D | E

I spent a year rewatching Black Sails and tracking all the bits of music that repeated at any point during the show, and my findings are reinforcing that Bear McCreary is a genius and this show should have been called 'parallels that will kill you over and over again'* (tag | chronological)

[illuminated-in-darkness]

Charles Vane | Proper Pirate - AB (Part 3) Black Sails Musical Parallels | XI. XII. XV. XVIII.

music breakdown note: The music in this parallel is made up of parts A and B. Parts C and D are each a different extension of part A. E is a tease of A (only the first two notes of part A)

All the scenes in this group have A, B. Both scenes in XI also include C. The scene in XVIII goes B, A rather than A, B.

music variation note: The music for this parallel is played on the clavichord (or similar) for the first scene in XI, as well as XII and XVIII. In XVIII, the music is played very quietly and slightly in the background of other music. The second scene in XI is played on strings. The scene in XV is played on hurdy gurdy.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

AB | A | B | C | D | E

I spent a year rewatching Black Sails and tracking all the bits of music that repeated at any point during the show, and my findings are reinforcing that Bear McCreary is a genius and this show should have been called 'parallels that will kill you over and over again'* (tag | chronological)

[illuminated-in-darkness]

Charles Vane | Proper Pirate - AB (Part 2) Black Sails Musical Parallels | VII. VIII.

music breakdown note: The music in this parallel is made up of parts A and B. Parts C and D are each a different extension of part A. E is a tease of A (only the first two notes of part A)

All the scenes in this group have A, B. The first scene in VII also includes C, D. The third scene in VII also includes D. The first scene in VIII also includes C. The fourth scene in VII and the second scene in VIII is D, B rather than A, B.

music variation note: The music for this parallel is played on the hurdy gurdy for all the scenes in this set, except the second scene in VII, which is played on flute and up an octave. The third scene in VII is played in a higher key.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

AB | A | B | C | D | E

I spent a year rewatching Black Sails and tracking all the bits of music that repeated at any point during the show, and my findings are reinforcing that Bear McCreary is a genius and this show should have been called 'parallels that will kill you over and over again'* (tag | chronological)

[illuminated-in-darkness]

Charles Vane | Proper Pirate - AB (Part 1) Black Sails Musical Parallels | IV. V. VI.

music breakdown note: The music in this parallel is made up of parts A and B. Parts C and D are each a different extension of part A. E is a tease of A (only the first two notes of part A)

All the scenes in this group have A, B. The first scene in IV and the second scene in V also include C, D. The scene in VI also includes C. The first scene in V is B, C rather than A, B.

music variation note: The music for this parallel is played on the hurdy gurdy for all the scenes in this set, except the first scene in V, which is played on strings

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

AB | A | B | C | D | E

I spent a year rewatching Black Sails and tracking all the bits of music that repeated at any point during the show, and my findings are reinforcing that Bear McCreary is a genius and this show should have been called 'parallels that will kill you over and over again'* (tag | chronological)

[piratecaptainraven]

Black Sails theme at Bear McCreary's Themes and Variations Tour (28/05/2025)

[illuminated-in-darkness]

Freedom and Resistance Black Sails Musical Parallels | VI. XVI. XXIII. XXVII. XXVIII. XXIX. XXXI.

music variation note: XXIX plays only the first and third note of the beginning of the theme's melody.

I spent a year rewatching Black Sails and tracking all the bits of music that repeated at any point during the show, and my findings are reinforcing that Bear McCreary is a genius and this show should have been called 'parallels that will kill you over and over again'* (tag | chronological)