Recorded the first show of 2025 today and Rhys was able to finally come in contact with the Sir Ed YETI Expedition backpack. In fact he wore it for the whole episode! #thecryptidfactor
Trumps first run was scary, but the guy had no idea what he was doing or where the lines were or what he could get away with.
Now we've just unequivocally told him that the answer to what he can get away with is "literally fucking anything bro, commit crimes, rape people, and oh don't forget to touch that abortion hot button issue Republicans have always been too afraid to, you're invincible." and then handed him the keys to the White House a second time.
I just woke up to find they've not only got the Supreme Court but they've now got the Senate and are probably going to get the House too, literally nothing will be stopping this man. This could not have played out worse than it did, I'm fucking sick.
Dusting off my Tumblr for some post-U.S. election reflections.
I keep thinking about Vico’s call to keep creating, among others I’ve seen:
And—in a word—yes. Art of all kinds is more, not less important at times like these. Bare survival will be harder for many, and we need to do everything we can to help each other survive. But they want to silence us completely. We can’t let them.
Creative acts literally make something out of nothing. Or, if not exactly nothing, they make something that amounts to far more than the raw materials. And/also, the things we create are literally us. Our minds and hearts on the page/screen/stage/etc. When we create, we’re bringing all of our identities and experiences to that process; all of our personal lenses; our individuality. No one else could make that thing exactly the way we do. It means something to do this, regardless of how large or small the thing is that we create.
And, on the topic of art mattering: I’ve always resisted the thought of ofmd as “mere” escapism, even if DJ has framed it that way himself. It’s not. Art lets us imagine other possibilities for the world and ourselves. Realities other than the (horrifying) one we have. If we can’t even imagine other possibilities, there’s literally no hope of ever bringing them into being.
A world on screen where queerness is the default and not an outlier matters. Where people don’t punch down; where individuals are allowed to learn and grow and change; where there is no requirement to meet someone’s definition of “good” to deserve love and membership in a community. Where no one is truly unlovable or unsalvageable, unless they choose violence for their own ends (or to serve the state). It matters deeply that this piece of media exists.
Today I feel like I’m experiencing multiple stages of grief at once. Rage that this is our world; despair that so many of my neighbors are so full of hate, fear, and ignorance; disbelief that the election outcome was as catastrophic as it was. Doing anything at all is an enormous struggle. But I know that art matters and making things matters. We’ll all be on our own timelines for creating and engaging, and holding space for that is important. But I don’t think anyone should think any of it is frivolous. Humanity has been making art and telling stories for as long as we have been able to sit by a fire to do these things. It’s essential. It’s baked in. It’s what we do.
more than one person asked so i'm making a post about it. i use this program to download torrents (it's safe, no viruses or ads, i've been torrenting for years). and this is the website where i found the ridiculously hd version of ofmd. just type "our flag means death s01" in the searchbar at the top. for s2 you might have to search episode by episode, so "our flag means death s02e01" and so on (i don't know if the season has been uploaded in a single torrent yet, it hadn't been when i downloaded it). then just click the little red magnet symbol that looks like a big U, and it'll ask you if you want to open the link with qbitorrent. click yes, pick a folder to save the episodes in your computer, and have fun (the higher the green number next to the episodes is on the website, the faster the link will download, so if a link doesn't work just pick another one). you can always ask if you get stuck somewhere, i don't mind!
oh btw 2160p is the highest definition available right now so aim for those links, I'll leave them seeding forever
follow up to my previous post about how to torrent ofmd in ridiculously high hd, since some people couldn't access the website where i got the torrent links. i uploaded them to my google drive, you should be able to download them and open them directly in qbittorrent by going to file -> add torrent file. if anyone has any issues let me know!
Thinking about the "Stede crossed Ed's boundaries" discourse from Calypso's Birthday, and how it's mostly not true? I won't deny that Stede was attempting to initiate sex at a high stress and, by most parameters, inappropriate time. It probably didn't fall under the definition of "taking things slow," but that's also not a clear boundary. No one defined what taking things slow actually means; however, they *do* establish how that boundary should be respected.
Stede kisses Ed, Ed wants to take things slow. Stede holds Ed's hand, asks if it's okay. Ed confirms that it's okay. So the guidelines for taking things slow is this: things are okay if Ed says they're okay.
What does Stede do at the end of the episode? He pulls Ed into the room and pushes him against the wall. He silently waits for permission from Ed. Ed nods and confirms that it's okay.
No, it wasn't really a good time for all this, but I think Stede can be cut some slack after what had literally just happened. He still respected Ed's boundaries based on what happened when Ed first asked for the boundary to be instituted in the first place.
Btw, if you have not had tragedy dropped on you before, grief does fuck you up in unexpected and physical ways. If you can’t sleep or sleep more than expected or have more or reduced appetite, or energy goes weird— your brain just had a bunch of emotions dropped on it and sometimes it reacts by hitting every button in your brain. It will pass. Just try to not get too frustrated with yourself.
It’s also fine if you feel normal. Grief literally hits everybody differently, and some people are made to be able to to keep the farm going the day after a death, and some of us turn into sleepless gargoyles and get really into trying to help, and some of us are just unspeakably sad. Grief is weird. Be kind to yourself.
Something else I want to say is that grief is cyclical. It is very common to go "why am I just a wreck today/this week" and then you check the calandar and see that something awful happened at this time last year. Or a couple years ago. Or a decade ago (my decembers are a wash every year).
So if you find yourself having memory issues or unaccountably grumpy or anxious for no reason or however it hits you, be gentle with yourself.
THEY EDIT FINE THINGS WELL: OFMD KISS AND KNIVES SCENES (S1 E9 & S2 E3) COMPARISON
Marveling at the OFMD editors who did so much more than just reuse Schumann’s Kinderszenen, Op. 15: VII. And Erik Satie’s Gnossiennes No. 5 from the season 1, episode 9 kiss scene in the season 2, episode 3 knife pulling scene.
Unedited audio from both episodes plays simultaneously in this comparison video. Take a look and a listen at what happens, with Gnossiennes No. 5 from 0:15 to 0:52. The music is playing twice, but you only hear it once because it matches perfectly. The way the verbalizations and dialogue work together are the kill-me-now gut punch taste-of-orange frosting on the best cake ever.
What's the story behind your username? (Do not share identifying information.)
The winner of this giveaway gets a One-Shot Fic Commission by @edsstaugustinesnake!
Reply or reblog with your entry response & use all 3 hashtags for a chance to win! #OFMD #OurFlagMeansDeath #RenewAsACrew
The winner of this giveaway gets a One-Shot Fic Commission by @edsstaugustinesnake!
New readers, please check tags and ratings before diving in. Check out their work at: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdsStAuqustineSnake/pseuds/EdsStAugustineSnake
More info and rules down below! 👇
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A one-shot fic commission! Throw me some prompts, fave characters/ships, and the vibe (I do funny or earnest😂)! Minimum 2K words. Can be original or in one of my existing AUs.
🏴☠️CalypsoFest Sweepstakes Detailed Rules:
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“Why, V? Why are you spending your precious time on Earth typing about some dumb fandom stuff when you could be doing literally anything else?”
In short, seeing all of these “Ed is an abuser who’s inevitably going to hurt Stede” takes have been driving me absolutely bonkers since I first noticed them. They’re not going away, so I’m going to bang out an essay.
In less-short: it’s because abuse is a serious thing and, as someone who’s experienced it, I get a little feisty when it becomes a topic of discourse in my silly pirate fandom. It’s because it’s upsetting to read meta after meta accusing an indigenous man of being an abuser. It’s because a lot of the abuse discourse in the fandom fails to separate real-life abuse from violence in a show. It’s because the vast majority of the abuse talk only acknowledges physical abuse which, while terrible, is not the only kind that hurts people and utterly destroys their lives.
It’s because calling Ed abusive or insisting that he’s a future abuser can harm people who are like him -- people who have suffered abuse or get angry sometimes or have hurt people when they were hurt. Victims of abuse, especially those who dealt with it in childhood, often fear becoming abusers themselves. They bottle up their anger for fear of hurting someone. They hurt themselves in a misguided attempt to protect others. They don’t need to see fandom meta that enforces their fears.
And it’s because, frankly, I am unemployed and I promise I’ll stop if you give me a transcription or copyediting job, please and thank you.
Before I get into it…
I may as well come clean and say that I’m on team Ed absolutely isn’t abusive and it’s weird that people are getting that from a show that’s full of violence.
Plenty has been typed in Ed’s defense by POC in the fandom, so I’m not going to go into how deeply unfortunate it would be to make an indigenous main character an abuser. I’m just going to say that, when you consider OFMD’s genre and attitude towards violence, it seems clear to me that you can’t call Ed abusive without calling out other characters (unless you have some kind of bias against Ed). His actions are deplorable in the real world, a bit much in OFMD’s world, deeply unhealthy, not okay by any means, and shitty and traumatizing for his crew, but they aren’t abusive.
I’m going to try to keep things polite and respectful. I’m also going to try to stick close to what the text is trying to say instead of doing that thing I did in college where, when I hated whatever I was supposed to write about, I came up with a batshit thesis that entertained me and forced the text to support me. I truly do want to present an honest, earnest analysis of something that I love.
(If you saw this before I cut for length, shut up, no you didn't.)
The arguments in favor of Ed as an abuser.
We can’t defend an idea without knowing what we’re arguing against (with brief counterpoints that I hope to expand on later). For this section (lol, sections, that feels pretentious and weird and I’m sorry), I’ll be lightly rephrasing things and omitting sources.
“Ed has anger management issues that disqualify him from being a romantic lead.”
Counterpoint: Ed does not have anger management issues. (Even if he did, I can think of a few very successful franchises with shitty and violent romantic leads. Ew.) He gets angry sometimes, as we all do.
“I defended Ed making Izzy eat his toe because that was a single instance and abuse is a pattern. Season two made it an explicit pattern.”
Counterpoint: First, feeding people their toes isn’t a biggie in this universe. Second, Ed fed Izzy that initial toe because he stepped out of line and demanded Blackbeard; it’s likely that additional toes were the victims of Izzy not being obedient. (I’m not saying this is right or that it’s cool to feed people body parts when they disobey, btw. I hope that doesn’t need to be said.)
“The first two episodes of season two set up the cycle of abuse so well, but the show never follows through. It doesn’t even acknowledge that it set up that storyline. If they’d wanted to end the season on a happy note without spending a lot of time fixing Ed’s relationship with the crew, they could have just made Ed’s behavior in the first two episodes less dark and abusive.”
Counterpoint: Ed’s behavior in the first two episodes isn’t abusive. It’s a bit over the top and it hurts people, yeah, but Ed’s definitely not following in his abusive father’s footsteps and systematically abusing his crew.
“Season two gives us straight up abuse. It gives us Stede, still soft around the edges, being deliberately headbutted during their reunion.”
Counterpoint: There is no abuse between Ed and Stede. The headbutt was not a case of a violent person intentionally hitting their passive partner; it was a confused, unwell, and nonverbal man reacting to the presence of someone who hurt him. Also? Stede has no problem setting boundaries or speaking out. Good for him!
“As bad as the season finale was, I’m glad the crew’s safe from Ed. Now that Izzy isn’t there to protect them, any little trigger could set Ed off and lead to him hurting them. Stede, though… Stede’s stuck with Ed and the corpse of Ed’s last victim, and it’s only a matter of time before Ed destroys him too.”
Counterpoint: This take is so far removed from the text of the show that I don’t know how to address it quickly, but here we go: Ed is not a threat to the crew after episode two, Izzy did not protect the crew from Ed’s moods, Ed does not have a hair-trigger temper, Izzy is not Ed’s victim, and -- vitally -- Stede is in absolutely no danger. Ed is not destined to be an abusive partner in season three.
And an overriding counterpoint to everything is this: Our Flag Means Death is a comedy with tons of over-the-top violence. If your theory is unrelentingly grim or looks at violence and its consequences in a real-world light, consider stepping back and remembering what genre the events of the show are happening in. If you think that only the violence committed by the indigenous lead is abuse, look at the actions of the other characters and ask yourself why Ed doesn’t get the same grace you’ve granted the others.
With that quick and dirty rundown of the arguments I’ve seen, let’s move on to the next important step in building an argument: definitions.
What is abuse in the real world?
In the real world, abuse is extremely serious and not something to be taken lightly. But what is abuse? We can’t say much about it in any world without knowing what it is in ours, so here’s a simple explanation:
Abuse “includes [a pattern of] behaviors that physically harm, intimidate, manipulate, or control a partner or otherwise force them to behave in ways they don’t want to. This can happen through physical violence, threats, emotional abuse, or financial control.” (1)
“Emotional abuse includes non-physical behaviors that are meant to control, isolate, or frighten someone. These behaviors are often more subtle and hard to identify but are just as serious as other types of abuse.” (2)
It’s important to emphasize that not all purposeful harm to another person, physical or otherwise, is abuse. “What abuse really means is control. When a truly abusive situation exists, it’s because one party is seeking to control the other through abuse.” (2)
To summarize, abuse is a pattern of behavior that involves one person intentionally harming another. That harm is meant to control, and it can take on more forms than just physical.
That said, I’m mostly concerned with physical abuse here, as that’s the only kind that I’ve ever seen discussed in relation to Ed. Going into mental and emotional abuse will involve talking more about a specific non-Ed character and I don’t want to go there. Possibly ever.
In our world, all abuse is terrible. Vitally, our world -- and this is very important, so underline it twice if you’re taking notes -- does not operate by the rules of a pirate rom-com.
Okay, so what is abuse in the silly pirate world of Our Flag Means Death?
First, we have to understand what the show is. @piratecaptainscaptainpirates lays it out nicely:
“1. This is a rom-com.The central romance between Ed and Stede and comedy are therefore the two most core parts of the show, with Ed and Stede's romance taking priority over everything else. That's not to say OFMD doesn't have dark themes, it absolutely does; it's to say that comedy is always important to how the show is written, acted, and filmed.
“2. This is not a subtle show. That's not to say it's a simple one [...]. It's amazingly layered and emotional responses by characters are often extremely complex. However, when the show is trying to tell you something, it's not subtle and it never tries to hide it.” (3)
Did you jot that down? Our Flag Means Death is a romantic comedy with one core romantic couple, Ed and Stede, whose story takes priority over everything else. It can be dark, it can be serious, but it is, at its core, a comedy, and not a subtle one at that.
Some things are just funny and that’s it.
As a rule, the most obvious reading is going to be the one to go with. The show’s meanings aren’t hidden under layers of red herrings and subtext; if you’re compelled to bring out the conspiracy corkboard, you’re probably in too deep.
But this isn’t just a rom-com: it’s a pirate rom-com, and that comes with gratuitous violence. Here’s a short, fun list of examples of things that we can consider canon-typical pirate violence:
Tying hostages to the mast and letting them cook a bit
Wanton murder during a raid (“Note the gusto!”)
Pirate A threatening his crush at gunpoint until Pirate B gutstabs him
Whippies and yardies
Cutting off toes and feeding them to people “for a laugh”
Pirates who are madly in love stabbing and poisoning each other
Literally any violence directed at a racist (this violence is, in fact, good and encouraged)
There’s also the pirate-typical killing of other pirates. Duels don’t seem entirely unusual, and Izzy outright tries to get Stede killed at several points in season one. When Chauncey Badminton and the English navy show up after being summoned by Izzy, Stede’s life isn’t the only one on the line; the rest of the crew is also put in potentially life-threatening danger. Izzy is forgiven, so I think it’s safe to say that attempted murder is the kind of thing that pirates typically move on from. Eventually. If the attempted murderer is pathetic enough.
In short, Our Flag Means Death has a lot of violence, and very few instances of violence (looking at you, Hornigold) are treated as anything other than socially acceptable. But do you know what’s really important in the show?
Feelings.
The way characters feel as a result of something is given an immense amount of weight. All of the show’s subtleties are in the realms of the mental and the emotional, and that’s where the real pain is too.
Nigel Badminton’s death was bad because it was emotionally and mentally devastating for Stede. Ed’s father’s murder was bad because it hurt him and forced him to create a monstrous alter ego to cope. Both of those men -- Nigel and Father Teach -- are totally acceptable casualties; their deaths would be net positives if they hadn’t had such strong impacts on our leads.
Feelings are everything in Our Flag Means Death, and the feelings of our leads are the heart of the show. That’s where the story is; that’s where the complexity and ambiguity is.
So what is abuse in this context? The casual treatment of physical violence and the seriousness of emotional distress tell us to adjust our own moral judgments accordingly. Physical violence is everyday, straightforward, and often comedic; emotional violence is devastating and complicated. Physical violence is cartoonish and, half the time, part of a punchline. Emotional violence is real and raw and not a joking matter. Attempted murder can be shrugged off; ditching your boyfriend after experiencing a traumatic event is more complicated.
When we ask ourselves if something in OFMD is abuse, we have to consider the act in the context of a rom-com that’s all about the feelings of two guys, set against the violent backdrop of piracy, and absolutely packed with people getting maimed and murdered in casual, comedic ways.
Awesome! Now we’re a little clearer about definitions and genre and how we should adjust our expectations! Unfortunately, we haven’t jumped into the real meat of whatever the hell this essay is…
Is Ed abusive in the context of the show?
No.
Aaaand we’re done!
Joking, joking. Obviously I’m going to pick out the examples of “abuse” that people cite and discuss each one, but first: we need to talk about Ed, violence, and anger.
Ed is not a violent person. He’s not full of rage that’s threatening to erupt at all times, and he’s not some kind of sadist that revels in hurting people. The violence of Blackbeard is a fuckery: the theater of fear, an illusion of cruelty calculated to terrify enemies into surrendering.
Ed has his whole thing with murder that's rooted in childhood trauma. Killing his (canonically, decidedly) abusive father to protect his mother scars him so badly that he distances himself from the situation -- blames Father Teach’s death on the Kraken -- and can’t bring himself to directly kill anyone else after that. Blackbeard orders murders and causes deaths and maims and maintains his image as a bloodthirsty murderer, but Ed doesn’t do “the big job” himself until the end of season two. When Stede’s life is in the balance, Ed can kill to protect him.
Edward Teach kills only to protect.
But that’s killing, and we’re talking about general violence. Ed is casual about the day-to-day violence of piracy. He participates in it, incites it, and doesn’t feel bad about it. No one does! It’s part of the job!
That leaves us with the "anger problem." Ed is frequently characterized as an angry person who lashes out when enraged, and I don’t think that canon at all supports this interpretation. Ed gets mad, yes, but his anger is always at least understandable. It isn’t a constant, simmering thing that turns him into an abusive monster when he’s triggered. He doesn't always deal with his anger (or any of his other feelings) in a good and constructive way because both of our leads lack emotional maturity, but I think it's a mistake to characterize him as an angry person.
Hopefully I can elaborate on this idea -- the idea that Ed is only violent and angry in a normal and canon-appropriate way, and anger is by no means one of his defining characteristics -- by doing a run-down of all of the times Ed is accused of being abusive or showing signs of being an abuser.
Sooooo...
Ed loses his shit on a falling snake during his nature adventure with Stede (S1E7). In this scene, he’s embarrassed about the whole treasure hunt thing and annoyed by the very existence of nature. He is not relaxed. When nature takes him by surprise by falling on him, he stabs the crap out of it in a scene that is played for comedy. There’s the important part: this is comedy. Ed is grumpy and his childish tantrum is harmless and silly. It isn’t a red flag. Overreacting while irritated isn’t an indicator that someone will be abusive.
Ed punches Izzy after the English have taken the Revenge, captured Stede, and turned Ed over to Izzy (S1E9). Honestly, I think the fact that Ed lets Izzy talk before punching him demonstrates a great deal of restraint on his part! This is justified anger and fear for Stede’s life. This also isn’t some sign that Ed hits Izzy on the regular.
In his post-pillow fort era, Ed is cleaning up his cabin when that one highly contentious Izzy scene happens (S1E10). Izzy insults Ed, tells him that he’d be better off dead than as he currently is, and says that he serves only Blackbeard (Ed better watch his fucking step). Ed reacts by grabbing Izzy by the throat and telling him to choose his next words carefully. This, in my opinion, is a valid way for a pirate captain to react to insubordination. At the very least, it doesn't tell us that Ed is Izzy's abuser; there's no indication that this isn't a one-off provocation and reaction.
Which takes us to The Toe Scene.
In real life, it would be extremely fucked up for a boss to remove an employee’s toe and make him eat it. OFMD is not real life. One episode earlier, Ed was talking about the life he was glad to leave behind -- the life where The Toe Thing was done “for a laugh.” Not as punishment, but for fun. It’s set up as something that’s gross (“yuck”), not a grave punishment. When Ed feeds Izzy his toe, he gives Izzy what be asked for: he gives him a violent captain. He gives him Blackbeard. He gives him the guy who fed people toes for fun.
But what’s important here is that Ed is not having fun. He’s having a hell of a lot less fun than Izzy is, going by their expressions in the scene. This isn’t who he wants to be, but after having the possibility of a better life snatched away, Ed throws himself back into the sure thing. He becomes the Kraken -- the captain Izzy wants, the violent monster that Ed thinks he is and tries to distance himself from, and the only thing Ed thinks he can be. It’s sad. It’s desperation, not anger and abuse.
In the second season, Ed headbutts Stede after he’s revived from his coma/death (S2E4). In the next scene, Stede is holding a cold steak to his face and calling it an accident. Roach says “that’s what they all say” -- a line that alludes to domestic violence. The thing is? It’s not, and the crew has expectations of Ed that Stede doesn’t.
Ed is freshly out of a coma (or newly alive). He’s nonverbal. His brain is, medically speaking, couscous. He still has one foot in the gravy basket. When he sees the man who left him hovering over him -- the man he loves, the man who just appeared to him as a mermaid -- he tries to say something then, when that fails, resorts to a headbutt. This is a single violent action perpetrated by a confused and hurt man who doesn’t know what to do with all of his feelings. He can't talk. He can't push Stede away.
Stede understands all of this, even if the other characters don’t. He sees the headbutt for what it is: a bit of a bitchy move. He isn’t afraid of Ed. He never is.
Stede also isn’t afraid of Ed when he acts out later that episode (S2E4). When Ed learns that Stede went back to Mary, he excuses himself from the dinner table, smashes a chair against the wall, and knocks a vase to the ground. In this entire episode (this entire season, tbh), Ed is having intense feelings that he doesn’t know how to express or work through; the reveal that Stede returned to his wife is the final straw. He takes his tangled feelings out on an acceptable target (a chair, a vase) instead of Stede because he doesn’t want to hurt Stede.
This looks a little like displacement -- when “an unacceptable feeling or thought about a person, place or thing is redirected towards a safer target.” Displacement is an “intermediate level coping mechanism.” That is, it’s more sophisticated than the ways children deal with intense issues, but it’s still not entirely mature. In an adult, it indicates a level of emotional immaturity. (4) Ed is emotionally immature, not inherently violent. He gets overwhelmed by his feelings and lashes out -- not at a person, but at something that can’t get hurt.
Displacement is not an indicator that someone is an abuser. It’s a coping mechanism. It’s an attempt at emotional regulation. It’s not the best coping mechanism, but it’s definitely not a sign that someone is going to go into a rage and assault people.
Stede cringes when Ed smashes the chair and sends the vase crashing to the ground, but he’s not afraid of Ed. He is never afraid of Ed because he knows that Ed isn’t a real threat to him. He cringes because sometimes that's what a person does when a loud thing happens. That's what people do when chair shrapnel starts flying. Also? It's kind of embarrassing behavior on Ed's part. They're guests enjoying a mediocre dinner! That's no way to act!
And this leaves us with the first two episodes of season two, which are an absolute mess.
Ed is fully in his Kraken era. He has no hope that Stede will return, he no longer trusts the crew, and he feels trapped in a life he absolutely doesn’t want. He thinks that he has to perform Blackbeard until death sets him free. He sobs in his cabin when no one’s looking. Publicly, Ed fades into the role of remorseless and bloodthirsty pirate captain.
Needless to say, this makes for a shit work environment. Ed works the crew too hard. He drinks and does drugs and runs everyone ragged. He’s an absolutely terrible boss, but he isn’t abusive.
That isn’t to say that the crew left on the Revenge isn’t traumatized. They are! They’ve been thrown off balance by the sudden change for the worse in someone who was their friend, and they’re traumatized by the neverending violence that the constant raids -- raids that were bloody and deadly, not the fuckeries of the past -- demanded of them. They’re traumatized by that final night in the storm when Ed did everything in his power to goad them into killing him, almost murdering everyone in the process. They’re traumatized by their own attempt at murder.
In S2E4, Blackbeard’s crew has flashbacks to the violence they perpetrated under the Kraken: Jim fighting Archie, Fang breaking a man over his knee. They’re also haunted by guilt about what they did to Ed, as evidenced by their Lady Macbeth-style scrubbing. Their own violence is a significant part of their trauma in this episode.
No, that doesn’t absolve Ed. He drove the violence -- demanded it of both the crew and himself. He hurt other people because he was hurting, and that’s terrible.
Ed’s behavior in the first two episodes of season two is horrible, but he’s not abusive. Not all bad or violent behavior is abuse.
(We also have to ask ourselves just how bad Ed’s behavior really is. Archie, someone from the pirate world who has no idea what the Revenge was like pre-Kraken, tells Jim “that’s how these things usually go” at the height of Ed’s violence. She doesn’t act like she experienced anything out of the ordinary which is, if I may be honest, kind of worrying. But ultimately, whether or not Ed’s actions when he was at his worst are normal for pirates doesn’t matter a ton here.)
But what about Izzy, I’m sure you’re asking!
What about Izzy indeed. Ugh. Okay, let’s just… let’s walk through the first two episodes.
One of the first things we see Ed do in season two is shoot a man. At first this seems like the show telling us that Ed is embracing the kind of violence he couldn’t manage before, but if we pay attention, we can see that he’s still following his “not a murderer on a technicality” logic. The man he shoots has a sword through his chest; he's as good as dead. He also falls offscreen before Ed shoots, making the action less impactful.
OFMD is not subtle and this is a quick way to communicate what’s going on with Ed. He’s not doing well and he’s more violent than he was last season, but he’s still himself under the Kraken’s makeup. He hasn’t done a moral one-eighty. If the show wanted us to think that Ed's a monster, they would have made him a hell of a lot more violent.
So. Izzy.
Immediately after Ed tells Izzy that he’s replaceable in S2E1, we reach the scene that people point to and say, “That’s domestic violence!” This is where Izzy breaks down because he has just been told in no uncertain terms that he’s not Blackbeard’s special little guy. That’s devastating to him, and he cries when the crew shows him kindness.
Jim tells Izzy he’s in an unhealthy relationship with Blackbeard; Frenchie describes their relationship as “toxic.”
A toxic relationship is “any relationship [between people who] don’t support each other, where there’s conflict and one seeks to undermine the other, where there’s competition, where there’s disrespect and a lack of cohesiveness." (5) And you know what? Yeah, Ed and Izzy definitely have a toxic relationship. Well-sussed, Frenchie! And is their relationship unhealthy? It sure is -- for both of them! But the crew is, understandably, more sympathetic towards Izzy because they’ve never been present when Izzy was hurting Ed.
(Only tangentially related, but the crew must have really liked Ed pre-Kraken. As far as they know, the man went dark with no warning or cause. They deal with his bullshit for approximately three months (assuming one raid a day), and he has to go so far before they put an end to him. Remember when they were ready to toss Izzy overboard after, like, twelve hours under his command?)
Even though they only have one side of the Izzy and Ed story, the crew isn’t accusing Ed of domestic abuse. The term doesn’t apply to the mutually fucked-up thing that Izzy and Ed have and, beyond that, the scene is played for laughs. Jim and Frenchie use comically modern language; the whole thing feels like an intervention for a stressed-out middle manager with a shitty boss. It's funny. It's a comical thing in a comedy show.
Moving on.
Izzy returns to Ed and tells him that the crew won’t throw treasure overboard to make room for more treasure. Ed says, “And that’s another toe.” Losing a toe is the penalty for failing the captain.
Which is more likely: that Ed cut off Izzy’s other toes on a cruel whim, or that Ed cut off Izzy’s toes after other perceived failures? I’m going for option two. It’s obviously not okay to punish an underling by taking toes, but we’ve already established that toe-removal isn’t a cruel and unusual pirate punishment. It’s done “for a laugh.”
(Specifically, toe-chopping is the cost of Izzy’s failure. Frenchie disobeys and lies to Ed in his short time as first mate and he doesn’t lose a single toe. Izzy bears the brunt of Ed’s cruelty because he’s the one who demanded it.)
This is not who Ed wants to be, but it’s who he thinks he has to be. It’s who Izzy told him to be.
Izzy makes the mistake of invoking Stede and Ed storms above deck. He holds the crew at gunpoint, one by one, and asks them if they think that the vibes on the ship are poisonous. No one gives him a positive answer and Ed turns the gun on himself. He works himself up until Izzy interrupts and the following exchange happens:
IZZY: “The atmosphere on this ship is fucked. Everyone knows why.”
ED: “Well, I don’t. Enlighten me.”
IZZY: “Your feelings for Stede fucking Bo--”
[Ed shoots Izzy in the leg. Ed steps over him on his way back to his cabin.]
ED: “Throw this shit overboard and get suited up.”
I don’t want to go into speculation about the true cause of the fucked up vibe on the Revenge (it’s clearly not just Ed’s feelings for Stede) or why, exactly, Ed shot Izzy. What’s important for this post is this: Ed's actions are not unusually cruel for a pirate captain who considers his first mate out of line. This is the kind of thing that the idea of Blackbeard that Izzy worships does to maintain his reputation.
Fang cries when Ed shoots Izzy because he knows Blackbeard. He has been with Blackbeard longer than anyone else, and this isn’t Blackbeard. Blackbeard doesn’t work his crew this hard. Blackbeard doesn’t disregard the deaths of long-time crewmates like Ivan. Blackbeard doesn’t shoot his own crew. Fang is off-balance and distraught because his captain of twenty years is acting far, far more cruel than the Blackbeard he knew.
This is not Ed as he usually is. Ed at his worst is breaking all of his past patterns. He’s behaving like a different person. His actions at this point in time are not typical of his past actions or predicative of his future actions.
When we reach S2E2, Ed is chipper. He’s cleaning up, he’s tying up loose ends, and he has decided that, no matter what, this is the day that he dies. He’s determined. First, he’ll give Izzy a crack at killing him; next is the storm, the destruction of the steering wheel, and taking increasingly desperate actions to get the crew to stop him. He tells Jim and Archie to fight to the death. He goes to blow the mast away with a cannon and doesn’t react as nameless crew members are being washed overboard.
Ed is stopped only by Izzy’s reappearance and the violent mutiny that follows.
None of what Ed does here is abuse. This is desperate violence. This is an unwell man begging everyone around him to send him to doggy heaven.
And finally, we have the big murder party in the season finale. A surprising number of fans interpret Ed’s willingness to cut down naval officers as a sure sign that he’s gotten worse and he’s more violent than ever. This is, in my opinion, a take that completely ignores everything we know about Ed and his relationship to violence.
I said it before, but it bears repeating: Edward Teach kills only to protect. He murdered his father to protect his mother. He mows down colonists for Stede. He kills for love, and by the end of season two, he has made some kind of peace with the Kraken and his own capacity for violence.
It’s sweet. Like, it wouldn’t be sweet in the real world, but in this world? In a world where physical violence is funny more often than it’s serious? In a world full of pirate characters who all have hefty body counts? It’s growth. It’s Ed healing.
Ed is doing better. He’s not a threat to the man he loves, and now he’s not a threat to himself either.
Anyway!
No, Ed is not abusive. No, there’s no indication that Ed will become abusive in the future.
“Okay, but many abuse survivors take issue with the irresponsible message that Jenkins is subtextually sending with Ed’s story!”
That’s fine. Take issue with things. Feel whatever you want to feel, but remember that abuse survivors are not a monolith. Consider, just for a moment, that the abuse you think you see in the show is not textual. Ask yourself if Ed is truly worse than all of the other characters or if you have some bias warping your view of him.
Finally: please keep in mind that I’m not trying to present The One True Interpretation. I’m just rolling all of my arguments and thoughts into one big ol' ball and throwing it out into the wild. You don’t have to agree with me but, if you don’t, I hope you’ll at least have a bit of a think.
If you read this and liked it, please consider validating me with a like! If you read it and didn’t like it, I’m sorry for wasting your time. If you skimmed the first part and decided to dismiss me as soon as I said I don’t think that Ed is abusive… idk, peace and love and goodbye.
Editing and cinematography breakdown of the purgatory and mermaid scene in The Innkeeper.
I haven't talked much about editing in all of my previous breakdowns of this season, but I want to start talking about that, and I'm starting with this scene. The whole of 2x3 contains exceptional editing between what is happening in Ed's gravy basket purgatory and the real world.
We start with Stede on the stairs, quiet, only a deep inhale of despair is heard, the heartbreak already evident on his face. He holds up a lamp, one of the only sources of light in the "reality" scenes. Lighthouses and golden lighting in general have been used in both seasons to symbolism the love between Ed and Stede. Stede is literally carrying this light with him, and he sets it down next to Ed's head shining the light onto him. Stede is the one who puts the glow on Ed's face.
The editing then cuts to Ed in Purgatory as he hits the water, a giant light behind him, but he starts to sink away from it, becomes surrounded by water, recalling back to 1x4 when he talks about how he feels like he is just treading. Water shows Ed's mental state: he's expressed in the past that he feels like he's drowning, he wants to stay at sea forever, be the bird who doesn't touch ground, etc.
We end this shot with Ed's bare feet the most visible in the dark blue abyss of the ocean. And in a direct parallel, the next edit is to Stede's feet - which are wrapped in BLUE-dyed fabric, with RED lining - walking into the waterlogged cabin. This immediate cut between their two feet in water shows how Stede is meeting Ed in both worlds. They are together in the water, in the deep blue depth, their connection only picks up from there.
While talking to Hornigold, Ed professed that he didn't think anyone was waiting for him. And he still has that mindset as he starts to sink.
Stede sits quietly down next to Ed, lovingly calls him a nut, and debates about taking the cloth off of Ed's face. We know Stede to be a boisterous man, not afraid to talk, but his voice is quiet here, the sentences short. He covers his face with his hands, hiding and comforting himself. Stede is rendered speechless when he's faced with earth-shattering grief and this all encompassing sorrow tells the audience just how much pain Stede is in.
Stede pulls off the cloth from Ed's face, once again taking a shaky inhale of breath to prepare himself, and the show cuts to Ed's eyes opening in the water as he starts to fight, pulling on the rope tugging him down.
The editing takes us back and forth between Ed struggling with the rope in Purgatory to his fingers and hand twitching as he fights in the real world, all voiced over by Stede's mournful apologies to Ed. When Stede's voice comes through to Ed, it sounds muffled, like it has to travel through a tube to get to him - through the water and Ed's coma-induced brain.
As soon as Stede touches Ed's hand in the real world, squeezing it, Ed stops sinking further into the watery depths, and instead his focus is before him where a large light has appeared. This editing shows how Ed feels Stede's presence, not only his voice but how the touch grounds him, or at least prevents him from further sinking.
Stede's voice changes here, getting louder as he yells at Ed to come back to him. The quiet grief is replaced by twinges of hope, the deep sobs escape in raspy pains of anguish.
The light first appears to Ed in Purgatory when Stede holds his hand, and as Stede starts to hammer on his chest, to try and bring some life into him, the scene cuts to Ed seeing movement in the light as Stede in mermaid form starts to swim closer.
The scene then goes from both POVs to just Ed's. We see the rope come off as he decides to live. We can hear the muffled cries of Stede breaking in from the real world, and we see a sequence of scenes from the first season of Ed and Stede as Ed remembers all of their moments together.
Right when Stede pounds his chest for the last time and says he will never leave again, that's when the mermaid version of him comes into full focus. And we again spend time in just purgatory, in Ed's POV.
Mermaid Stede swims up to Ed and stops right in front of him, not touching, not pulling him to the surface. Instead he just stays there with him, smiling, and letting him know he's there. It is Ed who decides to live, and I think that's an important distinction. Stede doesn't save him, he just exists in Ed’s space, floating in the water, and ushering in light and hope.
The last moments are Ed waking up as Stede cries, their hands gripping onto each other in a symbolic meaning of them choosing each other, Ed choosing life. The last shot is no longer the fantastical purgatory place with bright white lights and blue water that symbolize the all encompassing pressure around Ed. Now it's the real world, where Stede is wearing blue and red, his feet are in water, and his lamp shining the light onto Ed. Their hands are clasped together as Ed takes a large breath of air - coming to life. Reborn not on the seas or water, but the boat that they fell in love with each other on.
We see continued symbolism throughout this scene. The red representing their love, the lamp set next to Ed by Stede and the bright light in the ocean that mermaid Stede brings in, showing the light and hope in Ed's mind now. And the blue colors that Stede wears, and Stede stepping into the water-logged cabin, showing how he is joining Ed in his world. And when Ed chooses life, all of those things are there to greet him but not in the bright fantasy colors of his mind, but rather the muted colors of the real world.
The cinematography of purgatory is lighter in tones. The ocean is dark until Stede brings in the white blinding light, which then surrounds them, turning the water around them to a soft blue. On the other hand, the lighting on the ship is darker. The brown wood of the cabin are just shapes in the background. The only light is from the deep orange lantern glow. The contrast in colors representing the fantasy from reality.
Every single cut in the editing has a purpose. Each action that happens in the real world is immediately reflected in the purgatory mindset. Not a single shot wasted. This scene is beautiful out together in all aspects of the filmmaking.
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