Writing to See How the Story Ends

R.G. Roberts - author of fantasy, military thriller, & alternate history Also...unabashed obsesions with Black Sails, House of the Dragon, Star Wars, Strange New Worlds, and other shows/movies. Sometimes writing fanfic, because it's my roots and sometimes you go home. www.rgrobertswriter.com

[toseehowthestoryends]

The Man O'War

One of the mysteries of Black Sails is where the Spanish man o’war captured in season 1 vanishes to after Captain Flint and his crew return to Walrus…but another mystery is exactly WHAT is this ship. I’ve seen her referred to as a frigate, but now that I’ve captured a good screenshot (season 2, episode 4), that this is definitely no frigate.

The man o’war has three full gun decks. Counting gun ports, it looks like each has approximately fifteen guns, plus a short gun deck back aft near the main deck. This averages to 45-49 guns per broadside, which makes this grand bitch not just a ship of the line, but a first rate ship of the line. That's the age of sail equivalent of a battleship! Take a look at the gif below of the man o’war savaging Walrus and Ranger.

(Frankly, if she was a frigate, I don't think Flint would've worried much; Walrus has the throw weight of a sixth rate frigate and would've stood a good chance; with Ranger along, they would've been just fine and no one should've panicked.)

So, what ship is this? The Urca de Lima was a real ship, though Urca was only a nickname for Santissima Trinidad, and she was part of a combination of two flotillas that made up the 1715 Treasure Fleet. This fleet consisted of eleven ships, of which at least two were ships of the line.

The first was ex-Hampton Court, a British built third rate ship of the line of 70 guns that was captured by the French then sold to the Spanish. Sources say that she was renamed Nuestra Señora del Carmen, but contemporary sources such as the governor of Jamacia, Archibald Hamilton indicate that this was a separate ship and the flagship of the second part of the fleet. (More on that in a moment.)

The second confirmed ship of the line was the French Griffon, which was the one and only survivor. (Cool fact: the captain of this ship was also likely the informant who gave Hamilton his information).

The third ship is the mystery ship that brought up the rear of the formation. This ship is harder to place, and was either a different "massive war galleon" or Nuestra Señora del Rosario, a third ship of the line. This may have been a third rate or fourth rate ship of the line, but sources make it very hard to tell. Given that the wrecks that have been found have never been positively identified, it's even harder to determine which ship was which.

Back to Black Sails. Historical evidence says that there wasn't a first rate ship of the line in the 1715 Treasure Fleet, but the show does also indicate that the Urca was traveling alone, so a bit of dramatic license says that we've got a first rater along for the ride. It's far from outside the realm of possibility, given the contemporary evidence that the Spanish definitely did use ships of the line as escorts for treasure ships.

I think it's safe to say that the ship isn't Hampton Court, however. An ex-British officer like James Flint would 100% recognize Hampton Court, who would've been captured (1707) after he left England but was a distinctly British design. Additionally, the characters continuously refer to her as a Spanish man o'war, which indicates she's Spanish-built.

Spanish-built ships of the line with three decks have 94 guns or greater. Until 1700ish, they frequently were referred to as galleons, a term that faded out of use and was replaced by navíos. If I'm going to be a real history nerd, Spain didn't really have a three deck ship of the line in this era; they'd scrapped the only one they had in 1705, Nuestra Señora de la Concepción y las Animas. But prior to scrapping, this ship was sent to the colonies to harass settlers around Panama, so she was on the right side of the world in the early 18th century.

Historically speaking, Nuestra Señora de la Concepción y las Animas (Our Lady of the Conception and of Souls) is the best candidate for the Man O'War in Black Sails.

In-universe speaking, that big bitch is a three deck, first rate ship of the line of somewhere between 94-100 guns, just based on the number of gun ports and the mincemeat she makes of two ships at the same time. Why did she vanish? Probably because it'd be hard as hell for anyone to beat Flint if you let him keep that ship, and Woodes Rodgers would've had a much harder time taking Nassau when she was protected by a ship of the line.

Have you seen this post before? Probably a close cousin of it. Dimwit me deleted my tumblr and had to remake it.

Additional sources:

1715 Treasure Fleet Information

Ship resting places, armament, and educated guesswork

Archibald Hamilton's information

[urcadelimabean]

HOW CAN WE BE NORMAL OR EVEN HALF SANE WHEN they paint the world full of shadows and tell their children to stay close to the light, their light, their reasons, their judgments, because in the darkness there be dragons. But it isn't true, we can prove that it isn't true. You were told that it was shameful and a part of you believed it. When a king brands us pirates, he doesn’t mean to make us adversaries. He doesn’t mean to make us criminals. He means to make us monsters. I want to see this whole goddamned city, this city that you purchased with our misery, BURN. There is no life here, there is no joy here, there is no love here! This place is just sand. It cannot love you back. In the end, that's all I want. To walk away from the sea and find some peace. I'm no one. From nowhere. Belonging to nothing. No monuments. No history. Just the water. It pays us, and then it claims us, swallows us whole, as if we'd never been here at all. What the water does to you once it's got you, it makes you cold, makes you scared. It shows you things. Bad things. But then it warms you. It settles you. It shows you the places you've been, the people you've loved. Thomas died in a cold dark place. I will not let those consequences touch you. I will stand in between you and them, and I will protect you. Her word will be the last word for this place. When no one in the world, no one, NO ONE, could care less about what those men were doing to me on the beach, she did. I can't be your wife, Jack. But you and I are gonna be partners till they put us in the fucking ground. I recognize you. What I assumed was sorrow, loneliness, and, most of all, terror at the thing you were becoming. There is an element of this journey into the dark that I'm only now beginning to appreciate: how good it feels. Everyone is a monster to someone. Since you are so convinced that I am yours, I will be it. You had your say. Now I have mine. To face death is a choice. They can't hang us all. You can believe me when I tell you that within his chorus of torments none of them look or sound like me. Odysseus on his journey home from Ithaca was visited by a ghost. It was as if the sea had conjured that man out of nothing, and then taken him back for some unknowable purpose. I didn't kill Flint. I unmade him. No one could divine any meaning other than that the world is a place of unending horrors. I’ve come to peace with the knowledge that there is no storyteller imposing any coherence, nor sense, nor grace upon those events. A story is true. A story is untrue. As time extends it matters less and less. The stories we want to be believe... Those are the ones that survive, despite upheaval and transition, and progress. Those are the stories that shape history. A man trying to change the world fails for one simple and unavoidable reason... everyone else. It requires an unbearable sacrifice. To accept a pardon? To apologize! Apologize? And who will you be apologizing to? TO ENGLAND! They took everything from us! And then they called me a monster. The moment I sign that pardon, the moment I ask for one, I proclaim to the world that they were right. This ends when I grant them my forgiveness... not the other way around. My name is John Silver and I've got a long fucking memory. Truth is... every day I've worn that name I've hated him a little more. It must be awful being you. Where else would you wake up in the morning and matter? One big prize. And with it, freedom... from water, from hunger, from wages... from you. We will have been for nothing. Defined by their histories, distorted to fit into their narrative, until all that is left of us are the monsters in the stories they tell their children. Who'll be able to take their eyes off the one-legged creature? But I cannot believe that that is all there is. I cannot believe we are so poorly made as that. Incapable of surviving in the state to which we are born. Grown so used to the yoke that there can be no progress without it. Too much sanity may be madness, and the maddest of all: to see life as it is and not as it should be.

This isn't what I wanted.

[bobbedrake]

James Flint + Books.

[debbiedart]

[bearfromthere]

Toby Stephens: It's a monomania which he can't escape from, which is basically, he has to revenge himself. He needs catharsis with with England. He needs revenge ....It's not even about Thomas.... there's this ego inside that cannot cope with the fact that.... he came from nothing and yet he has this genius, which is he's a brilliant leader – he's a brilliant naval captain.... he would have made a brilliant Admiral –he would have gone up, up, up, up and they took it all away from him. And he cannot cope with that. That humiliation of having it all taken away from him, and not only that but the only person he's ever really loved and found himself through, is taken away as well, and that anger is the thing that fuels him utterly and the damage, it's a conflation of the fact that they took Thomas away from him, but underneath all of that, it's the fact that they humiliated him and they took away everything from him. And so he – that monomania of exacting revenge on England is how he defines himself. That's how he's come to define himself and he sacrificed everything in that journey. I mean, he went to Nassau. They left everything behind. He started his pirate life, which he… really, really is not him. It's a guise, it's not him, it's not who he is.... And he's having to lower himself to kind of.... like, he's come up slowly through the naval ranks from nothing, which would have been an incredibly difficult thing for him to do, and now he's gone back – he’s working with all these slovenly kind of, you know, people, amoral.… they're not really that skilled. He's having to make them skilled, he's having to drag them along.... he’s always ten moves ahead.... And that's his genius, that's why he's such a brilliant character, why he would have been such a brilliant Admiral or Lord Admiral or whatever, he would have achieved, because he's better than anybody at it.... And the thing is, I think that, yes, his sexuality is a huge part of the story and of Flint, but – and it was a very important part of why I wanted to play the part – and what Flint is about, but I don't think he's all about that. I think that there is also the fact that he lost this career, and it was taken away from him.

....he's such a natural commander, he's such a talented sailor, and it's him. That's where he is expressing himself purely, is when he's in charge, when he's doing all of that stuff. It's what he was made to do. And the tragedy for him is, that it was never fulfilled in the way that it could have been. But in a way, fulfilled in a better way. It's like, well at least is not working for England! [Fathom's Deep Podcast. Transcript.]

I thoroughly enjoyed how Toby Stephens emphasised James' ambition prior to becoming Flint.

[debbiedart]

- Captain Flint is dead. - Not anymore. He's not.

[azarias-everywhere-else]

THE funniest thing about Black Sails is when Flint and Blackbeard finally meet. These two titans who loom over the rest of the cast. The dreadest of dread pirates. The men other characters have spent all season comparing: their brilliance, their ruthlessness, their power. Finally we will see what happens when they clash.

And it turns out Blackbeard's opinion on Flint is, "Ugh. This asshole."

Fully looks him in the eye and asks if he's ever gonna stop flapping his mouth about stupid shit. Edward Blackbeard Teach is James Flint's Worthy Opponent and James Flint is Blackbeard's Most Insufferable Guy I Ever Met. If he's gonna kill Flint, it's not gonna be because of a clash of vision or twisty personal betrayal. It's just so that he doesn't have to listen to this dick droning on and on and fucking on.

We've all got that one coworker, and Flint is Blackbeard's.

[sword-wielding-sapphic]

John Silver be like "I'm fighting my Flint's demons" and the demon is bisexuality

As I said in this post, Silver doesn't realise that 'darkness' also represents internalised homophobia within the narrative, he only sees it as rage and violence.

So he thinks that the shameful yet seductive feeling that Flint awakens in him is some kind of eldritch evil power rather than his own gay thoughts.

Lets unpack that.

Demons

Silver's perception of 'darkness' is similar to what Miranda described to Eleanor:

"Every man has his torments. Demons born of past wrongs that hound and harass him. You perceive the effects of Captain Flint's demons, echoes of their voices. But I know their names, I was there when they were born." (2x03)

Silver doesn't know that Flint's darkness is 'born of' homophobic trauma, he only sees the pain and destruction it causes.

Now, I want to emphasise that the only other time the word 'demons' is used in the whole show is when Silver tells Flint:

He then asks Flint about his relationship with Thomas, so Silver explicitly sees that as one of Flint's 'demons', before he even knows the context.

Bisexuality?

But the other crucial part of this is that Silver believes that this specific 'demon' is also manifested in his own life. He said in 3x06 that he has 'descended into the depths' of "what [Flint] wants, what he needs, what he fears". This implies that Silver is influenced by not only Flint's violent impulses, but also both his queer desire and internalised homophobia associated with Thomas, although Silver still perceives this as an opaque darkness.

Destruction as desire

However, because Silver is incredibly repressed, even after he learns the truth, he cannot comprehend that Thomas's death nor Flint's demons have anything to do with homophobia or queerness at all, because that would require acknowledging how this is reflected in Silver's own fears about their relationship. Instead, he continues to blame Flint's profound dubious evil power:

He references their dialogue from 3x09, where Flint defined darkness as synonymous with "hate"; but here, Silver refers to people he loves.

Silver thinks that Flint's feelings for Thomas and consequently for himself are actually rooted in Flint's thirst for destruction masquerading as affection.

Desire as destruction

Silver has got it twisted. Compare this to how Miranda told Flint that he was "fighting for the sake of fighting" to drown out the voice "telling [him] to be ashamed of [him]self for having loved him." Or how Max was able to identify that Anne's anger was only concealing her queer desire "hiding in a place not even [she] can see".

Black Sails repeatedly emphasises how queerness and the shame associated with it can be externally manifested as violence (but that's a topic for another post). Silver can see the connection between these things, but he mixes up the cause and effect.

But it isn't true

Of course, Flint beautifully articulates how queerness only appears sinful and scary when it is unjustly shrouded in the shadows of shame in his "there be dragons" speech. But Silver still refuses to understand the distinction; he says in response:

Silver thinks that he has identified the true source of the 'voice' that Flint claimed was elusive. But he ignores the fact that the darkness he felt over losing Madi is not the same as what Flint felt over losing Thomas. It was not just grief over a loved one, it was also shame about his identity. Flint's rage was formed in those shadows.

Kept in the dark

I don't believe for a second that this is true ignorance on Silver's part; as Flint said, he's "too smart not to know this". Especially considering how he's usually so aware of the narrative, it seems like a very deliberate blind spot. Perhaps Silver's conceptions of violence and sexuality are too inextricably tangled in his mind due to his mystery trauma. Perhaps he is just so repressed that he can't allow himself the 'possibility' and 'freedom' he could find in the dark.

Regardless, when Flint tells Silver that if he tries to move on and marry Madi, then "she'll no longer be enough and the comfort will grow stale" and he'll end up "casting about in the dark", he has to know that Flint is talking about the darkness of shame and repression. He's saying that Silver will always think about Flint and what they could have been. And that's when Silver pulls the gun on him. He can't listen to another word.

But we know that Silver will return to that island in search of proof that he mattered to Flint. And the only 'demon' tormenting him will be the voice of Captain Flint echoing through the trees.

[commodoresays]

Walrus Crew Appreciation Post - De Groot

[commodoresays]

Captain Flint + shouting orders

For Talk Like a Pirate Day, my favorite pirate doing the talking he does best

[grey-wardens]

I have one regret. I regret ever coming to this place with the assumption that a reconciliation could be found. That reason could be a bridge between us. BLACK SAILS — EPISODE XVIII.

[commodoresays]

Black Sails - S2E01

Flint + climbing the Spanish warship

[fairweathermyth]

In every crime of the heart, you'll rip yourself apart It's outsider art, provokes every emotion And it may bewilder a few, it's an unpleasant view You're an agent of truth, twisted up at the tail end

You play the villain like a violin It comes from within Darkness you can befriend It comes from within

It's a dead end, don't overextend Hail the darkness you can befriend

"Crimes of the Heart" by Waxahatchee

[henrywinterapologists]

To become like the sea - Vast, Wise, an empire of royal blue quietness, rage tasting like salt.

- Odyssey

[ltwilliammowett]

Court- martial

In order to be court-martialed, the person concerned had to have committed a crime that resulted in more than 12 lashes as punishment - (from 1806 there were 48 lashes that the captain was allowed to inflict without court martial). These included murder, injury to a comrade and/or officer, mutiny, desertation, cowardice, sexual assault (whether consensual or not), bribery, sale of RN property, but also things like drunkenness and insults could lead to a court martial,everything that infringed the articles of war . Mostly however, minor offences such as drunkenness were punished with lighter punishments such as tying to the shrouts, flogging and so on.

 Court martial on deck, early 19th century

But if it happened,and the captain of the ship had to call for a court martial it would held on his ship. He first informed his commander-in-chief, who had to try to find 5 but not more than 13 captains or higher rankings. It was not always easy to find so many active captains with a ship at once, especially not in the outer naval bases. So it could take weeks until the accused, who was in prison until then, was brought to justice. It could happen that the affected ship was sent off again. Which made the waiting even longer. It could also happen that the accused died before he was presented to the court.

  Court martial, from The Illustrated London News, 1845.  

A court-martial always met in the morning and was opened with a gun salute so that everyone knew what was going on. Every accused was entitled to a defence, most of them defended themselves, because they could not afford a lawyer. The Judge advocate of the fleet or one of his deputies made sure that everything went according to the law. If the person was convicted he could face one of the following penalties: death penalty, imprisonment, flogging with more than three dozen lashes or flogging around the fleet with 100-1000 lashes (which was equivalent to a death sentence), fine, reduction or withdrawal of rank.

These pages are part of a volume which dates from 12 August 1696 (the court-martial of Michael Cashall for deserting the Chichester) to 10 August 1697 (Captain John Writtle of the Brilliant, for embezzlement).

There have also been cases where the Captain has been charged with murder for acting without calling for a court martial.  So it happened to a captain in 1807. As it turned out, this was a case of child abuse, a lieutenant had abused one of the boys. His captain had punished him with death. The boy defended his captain and told the court exactly what had happened and so the captain was acquitted.

The execution of Admiral John Byng, 14th March, 1757             

However, a court martial was automatically carried out when a captain lost his ship, either by capture or sinking. The crew was then also put on trial to determine whether human error, lack of courage, non-compliance with Naval Tactics, an accident or simply superiority of the enemy were the reason. In 80% of the cases the captain was acquitted. Admirals were mostly not accused. But there were exceptions. In 1756 it happened to Admiral Byng who was sentenced to death by shooting because he had not fought honourably and had not followed the Tactics.

It was therefore quickly possible to be court-martialed and it was not often that the affected person came out alive.

[fisharray]

We always talk about the amazing themes and raw emotion of the "Apologize to England" speech, but this morning I was thinking about some of the earlier, less quotes lines.

"There is no life here, there is no joy here there is no love here.."

"What are you talking about? What do you think I'm out there fighting for if not to make all those things possible here?'

"You'll fight a war, so we can make a life?"

"You don't get one without the other, my sweet"

Specifically, I was thinking about these lines and how they relate to early queer activists, whose lives Flint's story very much parallels.

Fint is presented with two options in this scene, and these options are mirrored in the story as a whole. He can continue to fight, to build a life that is true to him and to Thomas's legacy, or he can apologize, capitulate to the beliefs and policies and rules of the crown and build an easier, more comfortable life in Boston.

Think about the early queer activists, for whom it also required an intolerable sacrifice to apologize for who they are and what they believe. For whom asking for a "pardon," renouncing their identities and integrating back into society was an option they weren't willing to accept. A sacrifice they weren't willing to make.

Think about how these people, like Flint, weren't willing to allow society take everything from them, call them a monster and then ask them to apologize.

Think about how people around them, people who loved them, might have seen the agony they were putting themselves through by resisting and begged them to give up the fight, To accept a pardon, even if it means admitting that society was right and living an easier, simpler life.

Think about how their loved ones must have felt, waiting home as they risked their lives in protest of a system so much bigger and stronger than them. Think of Miranda must have felt, sitting in that house and not knowing when, or if Flint would ever walk through that door again.

Think about how these activists, just like Flint, saw no other way. How they were willing to fight a war so that they could build a life in a world that would accept them for who they were. How they couldn't get one without the other.

[samdeans]

It would seem these monsters are men. […] And it would seem these men fear their own monsters. An empire, a navy, a king.