#black sails s2

[erme-aeterna-arts]

so i’m watching black sails, and i’ve been having thoughts about s1-s2 and why they feel different from each other and how it serves the narrative.

so, the first impression from s1 was that somebody lied to me and the show is just your average one. like you see the characters who act a certain way, but you can’t tell why the hell they are doing what they are doing. see, eleanor, flint, they say what they’re doing it for, but it’s not what actually drives them, as we discover later. but in the beginning it still feels shallower and simpler than it is. even the relationship between eleanor and vane seems to have a completely different power structure (at first, the viewer is lead to expect the usual toxic dynamic with vane as the abuser, but i’d argue that eleanor has always had all the power, whenever she was with him, she used it for her political ambitions). or ned low who we expect to be the villain of the season and then he’s very quickly decapitated (bc he isn’t not the true villain of the story). there are many examples, but the point is that the viewer in s1 (and partly in s2) is an outsider to the story, is making assumptions based on what we are used to seeing in media, on the expectations and tropes we all subconsciously know and naturally employ to interpret situations when lacking information and later hold these interpretations as the ultimate and indisputable truth. and then they start debunking all that. the viewer begins to learn the truth, begins to immerse into the story.

and this experience of the viewer is necessary to the following dismantlement of the idea of “civilization”. this is the word being thrown left and right in s2, and it’s no coincidence that right until miranda is dead even flint still wants, desperately, to make peace with it, to be a part of it. discourse is a power structure, it is desired, everything that is spoken exists within it and according to its logic, like the concepts of good and evil, men and monsters. and if in the beginning to flint the purpose was to somehow make himself, his family, nassau, worthy of being a part of it, he later realizes that this will never mean freedom, so he tries to build a world outside of the reach of the empires, outside of the discourse.

because that world was never going to accept flint, a queer man, even though we see in his face before miranda speaks up that he would go through with peter ashe’s plan to tell the whole truth. because that world never existed for us, and i relate so much to it, the entire season is the pinnacle of the queer experience.

to sum up, the parallel that is drawn here is that in both cases the viewer is reminded not to trust the expectations we have of the world, not to expect what seems to be the truth to actually be it, that what you are being told is all lies and bullshit. because when miranda says that nobody but her knows why flint is doing it [trying to destroy the fort], we should believe her; because when we see the flashbacks with james and her, we should not assume automatically that the affair is between them, as it was only stated as a fact by other people like eleanor’s father, because it was thomas that james was in love with, because it was all the “civilization” needed to destroy their lives, because we, the lgbtq+, have always been pushed aside, into the shadows, from which captain flint as a persona was born; because when they, the empire, claimed then that this persona is the essence of the person, they did so to excuse the damage they’d inflicted, to hide the fact that the pain brought into the world was caused by them.

* i’d like to add something about the idea of the western world as a discourse (i’m including imperialism, patriarchy, queerphobia here as the basis of the power structure, hence the generalization), in the show it’s not just the word “civilization” that is used, it’s also “reason”, “society”, “rationality” and so on, bc they belong to this discourse. a very illustrative scene is the negotiations between jack rackham and that captain about sharing the prize like “reasonable men”. where it turned out that reasonable ≠ fair, that it meant that the one with more power was to have everything, according to “reason”, and the other one to end up with nothing. it’s a detail, but everything is connected in this show and so fuck the discourse :) fuck the empire :)

[burningvelvet]

rewatching black sails s2 and the soft flint/miranda/abigail/billy moments before charles town never cease to make me die inside... why couldn't we have had more of that... and more of abigail ashe... her narration was perfect...

when miranda makes up her mind to join flint against his wishes it really feels like the show was ushering in a new era for them. flint seems so much lighter having her with him on his ship.

flint joking with miranda and telling him he recognizes her... her smiles... them sitting around staying up and drinking together... miranda comforting abigail from her nightmares and flint from his fears about what peter ashe thinks of him... flint acknowledging abigail's suffering... flint and miranda sharing knowing looks when abigail was making eyes at billy... flint telling abigail billy's name and basically more about his backstory than we'd ever learned previously because he decided to ship them in the span of their 3 second exchange of glances... abigail going to flint and miranda to warn them about her father... miranda reminding flint that killing lord hamilton was her idea & that they share that darkness... miranda insisting on going with flint to peter ashe... miranda screaming trying to save flint when the guards started beating him... abigail using her courage to threaten the guards to save flint and miranda... miranda smoothing her hair and clothes preparing to see peter again... flint asking miranda if everything is okay and her telling him yes...

[editfandom]

Max - Black Sails, S02E10

[tomateblack]

I know they unfortunately had to change actors but what I’m about to say is besides that. Dufresne has lost all his personality during s2, which is sad cause he was so compelling in s1. The fact that he intended to keep being a pirate without engaging in any violence was interesting, I was intrigued, like he really thought that just by his smarts he could manage to be in a ship and never pick up a gun or a sword. And the fact that for a while that worked for him. Like, the majority of pirates are illiterate, there are “jokes” mentioning how some of them can’t count. But Dufresne is very good at accounting, and he was so nervous during his first raid that I’m led to believe that that was his first use of violence. he became a pirate (a profession synonymous with violence) and expected to avoid using it: what happened, what led him here?? But then he became quartermaster, and S2 made it apparent how interchangeable he is now, they could have given the actor playing him now any other name and it wouldn’t change anything. He is now one more pirate. Or maybe that’s the point: to show that to be a pirate was to be demonized, ostracized. You are first and outcast of society and then no matter how much effort you put into not doing so following the path of violence is inevitable. You are an enemy not because of your own moral failing but because they needed one. You were labeled an animal and then you were made into one, not the other way around.  

[allthecryingdragons]

Maybe his crimes against humanity wasn't that bad after all 😔 (He is gay)

[diegohargreeves1989]

God nothing could’ve prepared me for season 2 episode 9 (XVII) of black sails. I literally got whip lash every 5 seconds

[fuck-you-jack]

black sails season two episode one you will always be famous! flint is stealing a warship while silver follows him around. anne is having a sexuality crisis while jack is getting pissed on. the only person having a good time is charles vane

[john-silvers]

Know no shame

[frau-kali]

"If I'm not what I was when I was born, and I ain't what I've become instead... what the fuck am I?"

[patroclusdefencesquad]

james flint a better man than me bc i'd have

[milfygerard]

"was frerard just frank iero showcasing his instinctive boyhag behavior whenever hes around gay people" thread locked by mod after 26439472 pages of heated debate

[guthrie-rogers-place]

Hannah New as Eleanor Guthrie in Black Sails 208

[tomateblack]

all of this for internalized homophobia <3

all of this for love <3

[mr-culper]

The most interesting and most compelling thing about the second season of House of the Dragon is that only two, of all the characters, know what exactly they want and how exactly to achieve it. And both of these characters are cripples. Everyone else has no the slightest fucking idea how to realize their ambitions and what their true ones are. Both Aemond Targaryen and Larys Strong right out of the gate had to put in much more effort and hard work to accomplish something in life. And precisely because the starting conditions of these characters were lower than those of others, they did everything to become higher than any physically healthy person. Larys has the same influence on people as John Silver in Black Sails. Aemond has the same tender yet utterly ruthless heart as Ivar the Boneless in Vikings. And both of them have the same cunning ability to out-think their opponents as Sand dan Glokta in The First Law by Joe Abercrombie. These are at once dread and greatly admired characters, because they all achieved success in spite of themselves. No one cripple can ill afford to look weak, feel weak, be weak. This is why they are so dangerous: pain for them is not a barrier, but a staircase leading above.

[biancathecrossbow]

I am still thinking about Miranda getting killed for/in the middle of defending Flint's sexuality. She literally died on the hill that he had nothing to be ashamed of. 😭