While we like to joke about Izzy being in the wrong genre, I would argue that there are in fact at least five distinct genre universes in the world of Our Flag Means Death, and all of them have different rules.
Stede Bonnet, and his crew when theyâre around him, live in a Muppet movie. I didnât come up with this analogy but itâs so accurate. Insane physical comedy and comedy-action where no one really gets hurt. Mild peril but you know everything is gonna work out. Terrible puns and sight gags, but room for sweet, genuine emotional moments too. The rules of time, space, probability and logic will bend for a good joke.
Izzy Hands is in a grimdark action/drama where if someone gets stabbed in the gut they will behave normally and fucking die. (Probably slowly and painfully, of sepsis.) Crucially I think Izzy also lives in a genre where you can only be subtextually queer, and violence (done for or with or to each other) is the only acceptable form of intimacy between men. This is why being forcibly dragged into Stedeâs world, where everyone is busy having silly low-stakes misadventures and being gay and emotionally available all over the main textâand seeing his Subtextual Boyfriend go into this world and love itâsends him round the twist.
The British, Spanish and other imperialist militaries are in a Master and Commander-style naval adventure where theyâre the heroes. This is why they all take it completely seriously when Stede (unintentionally) kills Badminton and takes hostages, even though we can see that he bumbled his way into it ass-backwards. This is also why Stede is so shocked to get actually for real stabbed aboard the Spanish ship. (âDid you mean to do that?â) He didnât realize until that moment that heâd stepped into a different genre. The stabbing is one of the first Surprise Genre Switch moments we get and in retrospect itâs very important for setting up that in this world, the threat of getting hurt or killed is very realâwhich we need to understand to know that there are real stakes much later, when Stede almost gets executed by the British.
jbbartram-illu
origamiaround
