I've spoken before that Frenchie and Ed have similar coping mechanisms with the animals they fear: cats and spiders.
How Ed is scared of spiders and puts tattoos of them on his body as a way to try and confront and overcome his fear. But he also puts on black gloves covering them up; not always confronting, instead compartmentalizing.
I want to focus on Frenchie's fears, reactions, and growth.
As early as the pilot, Frenchie talks about his fear of cats. We hear at least two different myths about them, and just like how Ed tattooed spiders on his hands, Frenchie decides to make a flag with a cat on it during arts and crafts time.
This is the first step of Frenchie confronting his fear. That flag, with all the others created by the crew, is placed on the flagstaff a tribute to all of them, something that hangs with honor. Just like Ed can cover the tattoos with gloves, Frenchie doesn't have to directly look at the flag at all times.
Next, we see in episode six that Frenchie takes his fears further and becomes a witch, with Wee John as his cat (my favorite room people!) This is a nod to Frenchie's comment made earlier (and the overall folklore of witches and black cats, bad luck) about cats being witches.
I love that when the crew was deciding what would be scary for the Dutch ship, besides going full play, Frenchie once again decided on cats (and witches.)
In season two, Frenchie continues with embracing cats in all decorum.
Just like in the play, Frenchie becomes a cat during the Kraken era, putting it on the back of his jacket and making claws his weapon of choice. Knives in their hands!
He becomes the thing he fears to strike fear in other people. It is still putting up a facade in many ways, putting on this costume to get through pirate life — just like Ed puts on the facade of the Kraken to get through this exact same phrase. For both Ed and Frenchie, this is a part of them, but it isn't all of them.
Yet Frenchie also talks about how he locks his trauma away in a box in his head. Bottle it up. Frenchie contains multitudes, from embracing what he fears to trying to shove it in a box.
The one thing I love about the portrayal of trauma in this show is how each person handles it differently. How both Ed and Frenchie both use fear as both a coping mechanism and to instill fear in others. They are brave.
We see Ed by the end of season two grow and accept all sides of himself: the kraken, Blackbeard, Ed. Frenchie is on this same path with spiders, while I don't know if the show would have gone quite the same way with him as Ed, we do see growth, particularly with Frenchie becoming captain.
When the whole crew is reunited, working on getting the Revenge back to a better state — just like they are emotionally doing — Frenchie gets to gleefully choose the flag of the ship again. The cat that was on the back of his jacket is now the flag design, once again the thing Frenchie fears is the matra, striking fear in the heart of others. But this time, we only see one flag: the cat with red eyes and sharp claws.
Flags, or ensign, on a ship are important. They often symbolized, especially during the time of this show, a ship's nationality and therefore legal jurisdiction. Pirates didn't have to worry about that, instead they had freedom in their flag choice. Choosing a cat as their symbol, to let others know they are pirates to be feared, is a choice. And Frenchie's growth over the course of the show, embracing his fear is wonderful to watch. Captain Frenchie indeed!
