#It's not Nigel Badminton insulting him it's Calico Jack

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

idc that jack was mean to stede, jack clearly had his reasons for what he was doing, the onus here is on ed 100% for not sticking up for stede. if someone is insulting your friend in front of you, that’s on you for not saying shit about it, especially if the insults are related to body image. if stede had let someone insult ed’s body in front of him you would lose your shit so maybe chill with the double standard

I'm gonna say some things that sound kind of mean, but I want you to either a) read the whole thing; or b) let this be the last anon you send. Don't come at me about the first paragraph in my inbox if you don't read the rest of it. Deal? K good.

I genuinely wouldn't lose my shit because it's not that big of a deal. Ed's a big boy he can stick up for himself. I don't actually take the insulting of body image that seriously because I'm not insecure about how I look. I get that I might feel differently if I was but I'm not so to me body image insults are like any other insults. Of course I back my friends if someone else insults them, but that's not what's going on in Ed's mind. In Ed's mind Jack has a crass sense of humor and uses not-so-gentle ribbing to relate to other people, which is perfectly acceptable for pirates, and that's what he's doing to Stede. He doesn't think that Jack is using fighting words here. Under those circumstances I would pull the friend aside and say "Hey babe his sense of humor is a bit crass he doesn't mean anything by it he's just trying to joke around with you." So basically you're kind of assuming a lot about me, about the situation, and how mad I would be if a similar thing happened to Ed and your assumptions about me have all been wrong so far. I don't have a double standard. You're just assuming that I have the same standards that you do. I don't. I think your standards make you sound like kind of an uptight person actually.

Additionally, Ed literally doesn't know he has body image issues, Stede never opened up about the bullying he experienced, so Ed can't know that it's actually serious for Stede. That being said, I think his response is actually pretty appropriate when correcting for that.

Pictured here: Ed telling Jack to stop. Ed telling Stede that this is just Jack's humor. Ed reassuring Stede that he disagrees with the insult. These are the captions that HBO max put up, I'm not just making shit up. Ed doesn't want to be a buzz kill but he doesn't want Stede to feel bad and he wants his favorite boys to get along. I think he walks the line rather appropriately given the information that he's working with. If he'd made a big stink about it it would have embarrassed Stede and killed the vibe that he and Jack had going. What you're expecting from him is the exact wrong move IMO.

So you know. He told Jack to stop, what more do you want from him?

Also Stede is 48 fuckin years old. If he's that upset he's grown he can say something. He doesn't because he's Stede, but that means he's made it his own business and nobody else's. Ed's not a fucking mind reader.

[theorderofthetriad]

@cumulativechaos this had to be its own post bc i have way too much to say on it.

"izzy's contempt for stede reads too similar to stede's past bullying imo."

I don't understand that at all. I understand it's your opinion, but it doesn't line up with the facts of the show, or with my own personal experiences with being bullied for a solid 13 years of my life, or with the definition of bullying for that matter. Here's the (Australian) National Center Against Bullying's definition of bullying:

Bullying is an ongoing and deliberate misuse of power in relationships through repeated verbal, physical and/or social behaviour that intends to cause physical, social and/or psychological harm. It can involve an individual or a group misusing their power, or perceived power, over one or more persons who feel unable to stop it from happening.

Emphasis is mine, because at the end of the day the power part of it the the crux of what differentiates between being a bully and being an asshole. Taking a glance, the majority of the definitions of bullying (especially when the group defining it is an anti-bullying organization) specify a power imbalance. Between Stede and Izzy, who actually has the power? Stede is a captain and good friends with Izzy's captain, Izzy is only a first mate and has zero positive social connections with anyone on The Revenge. Even Ivan and Fang, who seem at first to respect Izzy's authority, turn out to not respect Izzy's authority at all.

Stede was scared and uncomfortable with the Badmintons. As a child when being bullied he ran away from the Badmintons and their creatively cruel tortures for Stede. In their childhood, Stede's bullies had power over him in numbers and social standing among their peers. As adults the Badmintons still have power over Stede as members of the navy. And even though he treated Stede so cruelly, Nigel's words contradict the situation, playing off the relationship between them as though they were really just friends and always had been friends and the bullying was just fun playing among friends.

Stede was also bullied by Calico Jack, who made Stede uncomfortable and purposefully called Stede by the wrong name (this will be relevant shortly,) doing so as a guest on Stede's ship and as a mutual friend of Ed and as a badass pirate the rest of the crew thinks is super cool, so Stede didn't have the power to do anything about Jack's bullying without coming off as, to quote Lucius, "bitchy." So Stede just had to stand there and take Jack's insults without being able to retaliate. Like Nigel, Jack bullied Stede under the false pretense of being friendly with him.

But with Stede and Izzy, Stede is, for Stede, unusually confident and aggressive. They meet on equal ground as equals in their field (at least at that moment as they are both men in charge of two other men.) They have a fight and Stede wins by jabbing a knife in Izzy's face, making Izzy submit to Stede's demands. Stede leaves that interaction feeling very confident, having had fun ("This isn't over Mr. Bonnet." "Good, cause I kind of enjoyed it.")

When Stede and Izzy meet again at Jackie's bar, it is no longer as equals. Stede is there as a captain, Izzy is there as a first mate acting on the orders of his captain. Izzy does not how power over Stede like a bully would have power over their victim. Stede takes that moment to be petty and calls Izzy "Iggy" (hm, that seems familiar,) announces upon Izzy's correcting that he doesn't care what Izzy's real name is, and later calls Izzy a flunky. In the next episode Stede announces to Ed this guys "a complete ASSHOLE." He even says that shitty little "looks like there's trouble in paradise," about Izzy a few eps later.

At this point I do have to note that the way Stede talks to Izzy very much reminds me of how I was talked to by my bullies when I was a kid, with extreme disrespect for who I was (people purposely got my name wrong a lot,) and a lot of insults. He's being a dick to Izzy, and only to Izzy, similar to how bullies will single someone out and treat them differently from everyone else, like how Stede was singled out and treated different from his peers when he was bullied. That being said, I don't think Stede is being a bully*, I just think he's the most comparable to one of the two characters.

*Stede is not seeking out to harass or demean Izzy. After the skirmish on the island, we literally never see Stede coming to or talking to Izzy oh his own accord, it is always Izzy initiating their interactions. It's just that Stede is being an asshole during those interactions and also happens to be the one in power, but we never see Stede use the power he has over Izzy.

The way Izzy acts is rude and aggressive and not an appropriate way to treat someone, but it's just not bullying*. The way Izzy treats Stede doesn't impact Stede like being bullied as a child or by Nigel or by Jack did. Other than when Izzy cut up Stede's shirt and during the duel, Stede was never scared of Izzy. Izzy doesn't intimidate him, Izzy doesn't have any power over him. All Izzy can really do while on The Revenge is say some harsh but ineffective insults like "little shit" and wait patiently until Ed decides to kill Stede. Izzy is not coming up with creative ways to make Stede miserable like Stede's bullies did. Izzy's not making any illusions about his contempt for Stede, whereas Nigel and Jack hid their contempt through passive aggressions and facetious friendliness.

*Izzy does make an attempt of using power over Lucius to make Lucius do his job (which might have been a bullying attempt I'm not actually sure if Izzy's goal was to demean or a genuine effort to get him to work) but Lucius establishes that he's the one with power over Izzy, not the other way around. When Izzy is momentarily captain of the Revenge and does have power we don't see him unfairly single anyone out, only punish Wee John in retaliation to Wee John laughing at him. And then the crew mutinies because Izzy's authority only went as far as people respected it, and nobody respects Izzy.

Stede and Izzy have a mutual contempt for each other, it's not bullying from either side, even with the power imbalance in Stede's favor. I just don't understand how you could watch the account of Stede's bullying and then watch the way Izzy and Stede interact and then think those two things are in any way related at all.

[sevi007]

Okay, what the - I thought IZZY was annoying af, but now there’s Jack, and he transcends annoying for me, alright,  - I mean:

How is Calico Jack any more of a friend to Ed than, say, Nigel Badminton was to Stede? There’s - there’s really not much a different how the two of them treat Stede, respectively Ed.

* When they shoot one of Stede’s priced objects to smitherens, Ed’s genuinely sorry and worried about it - look at his stricken face when he realizes - and even though that’s clear as day, Jack still thinks it’s HILARIOUS and does not understand what has Ed so worried

* The way he talks about Stede, insulting and condescending, even though Ed introduced him with such warmth - it’s so clear Ed cares about Stede, but that does not stop Jack at all from talking badly about Stede. More like the opposite. I mean - “store-bought pirate”, while looking openly at Stede, in front of the whole crew? The “dalliances” and “did I hit a nerve?” business?

  * The entire scene where Jack recounts the torching of a ship. Ed is so VERY CLEARLY trying to get him to stop, to shut up. He’s uncomfortable as heck, and gets smaller and smaller in his chair, not looking anyway in the eye anymore, and Jack keeps going. Keeps laughing. That reminds so strongly of Badminton laughing and laughing while recounting how they tied Stede to a row boat, even though Stede was trying to change the subject.

Going “Wasn’t it funny? Wasn’t it?” while the other tries to vanish into a hole in the ground is just - that’s passive aggression. More like, passive aggressive bullying, tbh.

* The whip thing, where he actually hits both the crew and Ed, straight up, in places where it’s VERY MUCH going to hurt.

That’s no friend. That’s not even a friend who simply has not realized that Ed was putting on an act most of the time - that’s just Jack being a d*ck.

[mhaccunoval]

UNRELATED TO ANYTHING. kiss marry kill: izzy hands, chauncey badminton, and calico jack. i await your response and explanations with bated breath.

my kill answer is you (i jest, because i love you too much) <3

❥ kiss: chauncey; he's TERRIBLY unattractive to me but if it's a SINGULAR kiss (and can be quick) then i will stoop and get it over with. then sit through him insulting me like he and nigel did stede

❥ marry: calico jack; i don't LIKE him but he's not AS bad as the other two. and i'm sure our two chaoses would meld like his & ed's so. some sort of arrangement can be worked out.............

❥ kill: izzy; like i'd do simcoe, kill him while i had the chance. especially because, dog eat dog world, he'd probably try to kill me for my intense attachment to ed (same as he tried stede) so might as well try to kill him before he can me Or die trying