While listening to this remarkable conversation with Dr. Alex Tankard, an idea was proposed that James McGraw is the plastic mask worn by the man we come to know as Flint.
I believe this is patently true. Of course, James McGraw is a mask. How else would a boy from Padstow, grandson of a fisherman, become a Lieutenant in Her Majesty's navy? He has shed his accent, his class, and possibly a Gaelic ethnicity, to climb the ladder of power. There is nothing authentic about him excepting his ambition.
Miranda even comments, 'I think you're someone who's very good at managing how you're perceived. And perhaps getting what you want without anyone ever knowing how you did it or perhaps if it ever happened at all.'
And his is not the only character in Black Sails for whom this is true. Toby Schmitz mentions in this Fathoms Deep podcast that Jack's accent was intentionally constructed during his time in the navy to fit in with his new environment, which is why the boy from Leeds sounds, in Toby's words, like 'a 1930s RAF pilot'.
If we revisit Toby Stephens' own interpretation of his character exposited here, he says, 'He's come up slowly through the naval ranks from nothing, which would have been an incredibly difficult thing for him to do.'
And this is something I love about James, that he forced himself into this gentleman's club, so that he could play The Game, and it's a game he is damn good at. He has become what he needs to; for as Toby Stephens put it, 'he's a brilliant naval captain – he would have made a brilliant Admiral –he would have gone up, up, up, up.'
I'm not interested in the life. Not interested in the fighting, not interested in the ships. I don't care much for the sea while we're on the subject.
Black Sails, X
This is one of the few writing choices I vehemently disagree with on Black Sails.
A John Silver who does not take the Sea as his mistress is not (to me) John Silver. A love of the sea is not an acquired taste, it is a vocation.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied
- Sea Fever by John Masefield
I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I lov’d the great sea more and more,
And backwards flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother’s nest;
And a mother she was, and is, to me;
For I was born on the open sea!
- The Sea by Bryan Waller Procter
If Silver does not hear the Call, then in his conflict with Flint, for myself, it is no choice at all. I will always side with the son of a son of a sailor.
If I were to recommend Black Sails expressly as a prequel to Treasure Island, it would sound like a lie coming out of my mouth. The acid test for this supposition is that were I to utilize more of the elements of Treasure Island in a Black Sails fanfic, I would feel obligated to list it as a Black Sails x Treasure Island crossover.
The art of the prequel is illuminating the road between a character's start and end point. It is chrysalis and metamorphosis. If I finish a prequel and the transformation which brings the character to the starting line of the original work has not occured then the prequel has failed in its purpose.
Let us take Billy Bones as our first case study.
Jack Sparrow is a far more accurate adaptation of Stevenson's Bones than the man who bears his name in Black Sails.
What you mought call me? You mought call me captain.
I told him I did not know his mate Bill, and this was for a person who stayed at our house, whom we called the captain.
“Well,” said he, “my mate Bill would be called the captain, as like as not.”
I'm not sure how the pamphleteers' son of Black Sails will become a man who suckles a bottle of rum like an infant at his mother's teat.
Then he rapped on the door with a bit of stick like a handspike that he carried, and when my father appeared, called roughly for a glass of rum. This, when it was brought to him, he drank slowly, like a connoisseur, lingering on the taste, and still looking about him at the cliffs and up at our signboard.
While we do get to see some of Captain Bones' cruelty in the finale of Black Sails, this is turned on his own men and framed as revenge, not habit. He could not be more different in Treasure Island:
“But,” asked Dick, “when we do lay ’em athwart, what are we to do with ’em, anyhow?”
“There’s the man for me!” cried the cook, admiringly. “That’s what I call business. Well, what would you think? Put ’em ashore like maroons? That would have been England’s way. Or cut ’em down like that much pork? That would have been Flint’s or Billy Bones’s.”
“Billy was the man for that,” said Israel. “ ‘Dead men don’t bite,’ says he. Well, he’s dead now, hisself; he knows the long and short on it now; and if ever a rough hand come to port, it was Billy.”
In Black Sails, Billy is often used as the voice of dissent regarding Flint's unscrupulous tactics especially. The only time we see any sort of ruthlessness from Bones, prior to his "betrayal", is the nonsensical showdown at the plantation.
I'm asking you... please... don't do this.
Don't do what? Respect the wishes of their potential recruits? Refuse to impress unwilling slaves into their pirate army? This is the breaking point that leads a man to draw on his comrades?
Were I to rewrite Black Sails to bring it into alignment with Stevenson's work, I would have given Billy a captaincy after his "resurrection". I would allowed him to be as ruthless a captain as Flint. Or to find that command transforms him into Flint despite his best intentions. Perhaps Silver would even join Billy's crew for a time as Silver plays Bones and Flint off one another for his own advantage.
I would make him the Billy Bones that Israel Hands admired.
And let us speak next of Israel Hands, who appears in the final season of Black Sails more as a manifestation of Silver's subconscious than as his own, separate realized character. In almost every scene in which he appears, Hands serves as a narrative tool that allows Silver to monologue. He has an unearned intimacy and insight into Silver so that he can in turn vocalise Silver's mental conundrums.
Why should I follow you if you don't know? Why would anyone? I don't give a shit what goes on in there. Fuck Flint. Don't fuck Flint. Fuck Billy. Don't fuck Billy. I don't give a shit what you choose, but fucking choose!
If Black Sails wished to be taken seriously as a prequel to Treasure Island then Israel Hands should have been introduced in the very first season and developed over the course of the show.
“Israel was Flint’s gunner,” said Gray, hoarsely.
It is baffling why Israel was not permitted to exist in the role which made him infamous in Treasure Island. Why not introduce him as Flint's gunner? Why not make some of Flint's success dependent on Israel's skill? And if I wanted to show how manipulative and charismatic Silver was, I would have him poach Israel from Flint. We would see the man drift out of Flint's orbit to firmly circle about Silver.
Then there is poor Ben Gunn who has such little screentime, his one narrative act of any consequence is to free Billy. And of Black Dog and Pew? We see them not at all.
Why create the fictional Gates, Dufresne, Featherstone, etc. when their narrative roles could have been worn by preexisting characters from Treasure Island? Some of which are barely more than names and complete blank slates upon which the writers could have scrawled whatever they pleased.
In conclusion, I am very fond of many parts of Black Sails, however, I cannot call it an excellent prequel and would even go so far as to say it is the stories of the historical figures that truly shine in the drama.
I may need to purge my feelings regarding the ambiguity of Flint's final end in the form of fanfiction.
At first blush, taking nothing into consideration other than Silver's speech, my incredulity matches Madi's.
The story he crafted has the plausibility of a child's fairy tale. It also reminded me of Flint's own observation regarding Silver's lies, "I remember when you first told me, it sounded like a...invention."
This is how Silver's story sounded to me, a bardic performance filled with improvisation to account for audience participation. ("I don't believe this. Flint would have fought to the death before allowing it.") He even warps Flint's own metaphor regarding light, like any good storyteller borrowing and changing threads of other stories to suit his needs.
And what for? The final season made Flint Silver's John the Baptist. He must increase, but I must decrease. Long John Silver had become the new pirate messiah. If anyone could have strangled the rebellion in its cradle by walking away from the cause, it would be Silver. It was made quite clear that Flint did not have popular support. So this idea that the movement dies because Flint is gone? That is another of Silver's tales he wishes Madi to believe so that she will not blame him for what he has taken from her. ("What decisions have you made about what our tomorrows will be?")
When listening to John Silver tell his fish story, I truly believe Flint's final resting place is Skeleton Island.
However, as the format of Black Sails is television, there are other things to consider, such as the visual storytelling.
The reform minded man, to my mind, undoubtedly exists. One could wish he was named in something other than the post-credits, but given that he is credited as Ogelthorpe, we can assume this is a nod to the actual governor of Georgia, who was concerned with giving debtors a new lease on life. (Where is the tragicomedy in which Woodes Rogers joins Thomas on this estate?)
Is Thomas in the keeping of the reform minded man? Now that probability is open to interpretation. The scene in which he is searched for seems to exist outside of Silver's yarn. However, the inquiry, "Then I ask you again and for the last time, is the prisoner we are looking for here... or isn't he?" is never answered.
So to my mind several possibilities exist: Thomas died in England; Thomas is alive in Savannah, but James died on Skeleton Island; Thomas and James are both alive and imprisoned.
I admit, I find Thomas as a prisoner of the New World Château d'If somewhat distasteful. Is this a lifelong incarceration? Once Thomas' father died, did communication to the 'reform minded man' cease? Has he been forgotten as thoroughly as Edmond Dantès?
And let us presume James and Thomas are reunited, will our Anglican reformer allow them to carry on their affair in full view of the foremans? I think not. It is here that the visual storytelling falls a bit flat for me. What is scripted as the reunion embrace is part of Silver's production and as such it lacks a touch of realism. It has a somewhat hazy dream logic in that James, while still shackled, just so happens to be brought to the field where Thomas is toiling, to be released to him.
I can't swallow it. Silver has made this lie a bit too large. The picture he paints is idyllic fantasy, and I fear it is to soothe himself.
At best he delivered Flint to a life of imprisonment, rather than giving him the opportunity to rescue Thomas.
You sent a man... to investigate this place?
Yes.
And he did this and returned to Nassau... all before the Spanish arrived?
Yes.
You didn't just betray my trust.
You also betrayed his.
So, I want to write the version where Silver does not hold back Thomas' location like an assassin's stiletto. I want to write the version of that penal camp that is less Elysian Fields and more Cool Hand Luke. I want to write the version where it is truly all for nothing. And the version where it all ends in the pain of rebirth that so horrifies Silver. I want Flint's optimism, "I cannot believe we are so poorly made as that," and James' cynicism, "I think it worth reminding you that in most cases a man trying to change the world fails for one simple and unavoidable reason... everyone else."
Silver: I've heard you use that word a thousand times. A war against England, now a war to reclaim Nassau. But hearing him use it just now, so near the actual arrival of it, it sounds different. It feels different. Not far from here, the fortifications are already built from which in a few days' time you'll look out and stare down King George's navy.
Flint: Are you having second thoughts?
Silver: Aren't you? All of the blood that's about to be spilt, all the things about to be lost... aren't you?
Flint: Well, I wish it wasn't necessary, if that's what you're asking.
- Black Sails, XXVIII
I can never decide if Silver is meant to represent a rough sort of Quakerism or voice of the modern viewer.
A generation prior to Black Sails Milton had implied in his "The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates" that the political violence of his day had not gone far enough.
...yet when others for the deliverance of thir Countrie, endu'd with fortitude and Heroick vertue to feare nothing but the curse writt'n against those That doe the worke of the Lord negligently, would goe on to remove, not only the calamities and thraldoms of a People, but the roots and causes whence they spring... - The Tenure of Kings
Cursed be he that doeth the worke of the Lord deceitfully, and cursed be he that keepeth backe his sword from blood. - Jeremiah 48:10, KJV
Men were publishing songs with lyrics such as these:
Small Power the Word has, and can afford us / Not half so many Priviledges as the Sword has
No Gospel can guide it, no Law can decide it / In Church or State, untill the Sword hath sanctify’d it. - Law Lies a Bleeding (The Dominion of the Sword)
Hobbes was speculating that bellum omnium contra omnes, "the war of all against all" is the natural state of man.
Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called War; and such a war as is of every man against every man. - Leviathan
In such a world would a man question the power of the sword? Would he believe there is any alternative?
Let us imagine for a moment that Captain Flint never existed, and that James McGraw had remained an officer of His Majesty's navy. Let us further imagine that he has been sent to the West Indies to root out piracy. Could he have, no, would he have, put a similar question to his commanding officer on the eve of battle?
I think not, lest he be met with the severest reproach. Such yellow-bellied sentiments are unbefitting a servant of the crown.
What fascinates me is Silver's instance that Flint is doing anything extraordinary, rather than behaving like a very ordinary man of his times. It is not as though Flint can risk his men without risking himself. War at sea is as likely to cull the men of the quarterdeck as it is to take the lives of those who serve before the mast. Flint is not some distant king at far remove from the consequences of his (un)just wars.
Whether he is McGraw or Flint, he is a man who makes his living by rolling broadside. In conclusion, either of those men is cut from the cloth of his age. I am not quite certain Silver is.
Well, I have quite a few thoughts about Black Sails episodes XXVII and XXVIII (3 x 09 and 3 x 10), but the one that resounds the loudest is the thematic confusion caused by Silver.
He constantly doubts Flint's aims, and with the scoring and staging I cannot decide if the writers are intentionally trying to bolster his arguments and his diminishment of Flint's cause. (Are we making a statement for or against revolution? At least with a show like Andor its anti-tyranny bent was never in question, even if the revolutionaries disagreed and sometimes outright decried each other's means.)
My own face mirrored Flint's, in its utter bafflement, at Silver's response to his past history. Silver asks, 'Before this war actually begins, I'm asking where it actually began. Will you tell me?'
A man is asked to bare his soul, and yet does Silver come away enlightened and committed to the cause? Not in the least. The only thing he appears to have taken from James' tragedy is that the man's Weird might damn him too. It is a gross display of self-preservation, more revolting because how can he presume to be 'a potential fourth member of this class' when that fourth member is already displayed in a gibbet in Nassau?
Charles Vane already martyred himself.
Charles Vane already defied his 'father' to further the revolution.
There are far more narrative parallels between Thomas and Charles at this moment in the story than between Thomas and Silver.
These men who brought me here today do not fear me. They brought me here today because they fear you. Because they know that my voice, a voice that refuses to be enslaved, once lived in you. And may yet still. They brought me here today to show you death and use it to frighten you into ignoring that voice. But know this. We are many. They are few. To fear death is a choice. And they can't hang us all.
I hate that Flint was forced to cast his proverbial pearls before swine to a man who presumes a closer acquaintanceship than he actually possesses.
I'm passionate about my schoolwork, its just I'm so damn lazy about it. Give me an argument and I'll be fine and dandy; give me busywork and I'll be bored and uninterested.
