#james flint i want to study your brain under a microscope

[chamerionwrites]

Because - with the possible exception of that (hilarious) comedy beat where Flint is causing problems on purpose in negotiations with the Ranger crew, and Gates hauls him outside to shout at him - there’s nothing that reads to me as particularly paternal about that relationship. Flint and Gates are coworkers, political allies, drinking buddies, partners in crime. They’re both older than most of the crew, with shared history and responsibilities, and they socialize the way you’d expect from men who are peers in that way.

Except that twice, as their relationship frays, Flint all but blacks out and says or does The MOST extreme, unhinged thing he could possibly say or do in that situation - and both times, it’s very evidently because Gates reminded him of Hennessy.

(He’s trying - clumsily, defensively, stiltedly but imo sincerely - to explain Miranda’s letter and their complicated relationship to Gates. Right up until Gates says “Billy was a son to me.” And the ENTIRE tone of that conversation nosedives off a cliff into crazyland, as Flint rants incoherently about how maybe Gates should’ve protected his surrogate son better by “help[ing] him understand the world in which he lived.”)

(They’re having an argument - tense, furious, extremely final, but not violent - right up until Gates says that Flint’s crimes are too great to be overlooked, that the future he’s been working toward is finished, that he must abandon his fight and flee with Miranda if he wants to keep his neck out of a noose. Until Gates frames it like a favor that he’s doing Flint, a kindness for old times’ sake. This is your end. Be grateful it didn’t happen on the gallows.)

And except for the - I can’t really think of a better word for it - childish blind faith Flint seems to have in both of them, and in their ability to conjure him out of trouble. Uncharacteristically childish. Flint is a shrewd, suspicious guy; even pre-life-altering-trauma as McGraw he’s a shrewd and suspicious guy! He’s not great with people in the sense of being easy to like (and he knows it) but he’s often very perceptive about their motives and weaknesses and worst impulses, and very alert to a dangerous vibe shift or a realignment of interests. He understands politicking. He understands that it’s difficult and dangerous, and explicitly says as much. His entire life has been a series of brutal lessons about how resistant opinions and systems are to change. He once took a guy to a public hanging and told him that, “In most cases a man trying to change the world fails for one simple and unavoidable reason - everyone else.”

He’s very far from stupid or naive! And yet when everything seems to be falling apart he goes to Hennessy and Gates and truly, sincerely trusts them to be able to Fix It. He’s downright petulant when Hal Gates can’t just wave a magic wand and keep the crew content with low earnings and less explanation. He throws a literal tantrum (and his furniture) about it! Miranda tells him they’re in mortal danger and the whole tide of political opinion is against them and his answer is I’ll go to Hennessy, he’s the closest thing I have to a father, he’ll support us. (Okay but. You see how that’s not a solution, James? You see how one guy can’t just make politics happen the same way he can raise his voice and clear out a bar????) And then he gets COMPLETELY blindsided when Hennessy does Not do that. The same way he gets completely blindsided when Gates - who he’s already had a friendship-ending argument with - tells him no, you’ve lost your mind if you think I will fight a 100-gun warship with you, and furthermore the crew knows you’ve been lying to them.

This is why the bit of undramatized backstory I’m most burningly curious about is probably Flint & Gates. How did they become genuine friends. (And at a time when Flint - who is a ten-time gold medalist in Not Making Friends - was presumably at his most wounded and walled-off and feral, to boot?) What made Hal so loyal to him. How did Flint also lowkey decide that Hal was his pirate dad. Is Hal even remotely aware that he’s been cast in the role of Flint’s pirate dad. Is Flint even self-aware about casting Hal in the role of his pirate dad, or is this all writhing sea serpents living in the here-be-dragons zone of his traumatized subconscious