#book: treasure island

[haveyoureadthispoll]

From the moment young Jim Hawkins first encounters the sinister Blind Pew at the Admiral Benbow Inn until the climactic battle for treasure on a tropic isle, the novel creates scenes and characters that have fired the imaginations of generations of readers.

[kuzuyamii]

happy anniversary to whatever is going on in this show

[burningvelvet]

captain ahab 🤝 captain flint

unapproachable terrifying intelligent captains who are viewed as gods of the sea and who bribe their crew with the promise of spanish gold to achieve a years-in-the-making revenge scheme they're utterly obsessed with to the point of madness

[bee11037]

I don't think most people know since the book only came out last September, but in Rebellion on Treasure Island River appears, being her true incredible self, and here are the best parts already (I'm not done):

She wears black jeans, cowboy boots, a white shirt, a messenger bag and her belt. That and her hair is tied back.

The Doctor calls her 'wifey'

She is canonically part of the paternoster gang

literally just all the interactions are amazing!!

and the book is incredible, in it's story

[misscloudiedays]

[bookishlyvintage]

New classics on the shelf ~

[aldersky]

Hello

I am once again trying myself at character study

[frodo-of-the-nine-fingers]

i think actually the funniest thing you can do as a pirate is bury all your money and then kill all 15 men who know where you buried it and then also just like die too so no one knows where you buried it and then one day Some Guy who kind of knew you (and really likes cheese!!!) gets stuck on the island you buried your treasure on for so long that he just keeps digging until he finds it one day and then is just There With Your Gold until your old quartermaster who you were scared af about (but no one knows why) takes over a ship with a bunch of other pirates because a ?? year old boy got the map to said treasure (but it's not even used to find the treasure in the end anyways becuase the cheese guy already found it) and so your ex boyfriend sorry ex quartermaster starts a mutiny and takes over the ship and then the ?? boy starts another mutiny and kills at least one grown ass man and your ex quarterfriend is like damn i guess this is my son now and surrenders so they wont like hang him or whatever and then the cheese guy is like hey!! i know where the treasure is and takes them all to it but there's so much of it that they cant even take it all and the island sucks so much and is maybe haunted so bad that theyre like we should never come back for the rest and then they leave and your ex boyquartermasterfriend is like peace out and steals some of the gold and no one even cares because he was pretty alright in the end and then the ?? year old boy decides ?? years later to recount this story but he's probably full of shit so no one knows what actually happened and you dont even care because you died before it all happened anyways

[metalandmagi]

Jim Hawkins in Treasure Planet: Everyone's first cartoon crush. Sass master supreme. Bad boy with a heart of gold. Fuck the police. Smart and inventive. Is immediately suspicious of Silver because he's not a fucking idiot.

Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island: Uncomfortable and terrified all the time. Listens to authority but quietly seethes about it because he's like twelve. "Hmmm Billy Bones told me to watch out for one legged sea men. But this one legged sea man seems clean and polite so it's probably fine."

[kuzuyamii]

any play, performance, or game is a cage because it's played by the rules written by someone else or whatever black sails is about.

[emojisarestatussymbols]

Acceptable book-to-movie adaptations:

Howl's Moving Castle

Silence of the Lambs

Muppet Treasure Island

[ijustkindalikebooks]

I love this cover.

[mobydyke]

do u ever hear about an adaptation so far removed from the original that you're like just write your own book. what's the point

[argentoau]

the annoying part about having black sails brainrot is that i haven't drawn anything about it yet so i can't channel it properly :'(

good thing is that this usually means the brainworms should be going away soon

[burningvelvet]

analysis on the character of billy bones as depicted in treasure island and black sails, particularly his dynamics with flint & silver:

billy bones is such a tragic character and i think he may be overshadowed by the larger personalities of silver and flint, who we see much more of and are led to sympathize more with. but from billy's perspective he really is a tragic character who initially had a strong sense for right and wrong which was later corrupted as he subconsciously/unwillingly "inherited" flint's worse characteristics. in billy's story, flint

billy is a skeptic and a dissenter, just like his political protester parents were according to his black sails backstory. he believes he is opposed to tyranny and injustice. he is therefore opposed to flint, who he has caught lying and acting unjust, and later on he is opposed to silver, who he sees as having echoed those same qualities.

yet, we learn in treasure island (and see somewhat in black sails toward the end) that billy inherits flint's obsessive tunnel vision, and he is driven to a mad sort of existence because of it, which sometimes leads him to align with those tyrannical qualities he detested from his youth. in black sails we learn he was forcefully conscripted to the navy, and was tortured by them after his disappearance in black sails. for a while he's still willing to align with flint because of how much he hates the english.

yet he ultimately ends up aligning himself once again with the english because of his hatred for flint ultimately wins out; he becomes a totally different person after this, toward the end of black sails we see him shooting his former men in revenge. just like flint, billy has become overwhelmed by his desire for revenge, to the point that it drives him to do immoral things he would have previously shunned.

his friendship with silver doesn't work out because silver is more aligned with his own interests and therefore with flint's interests, knowing that flint is the stronger personality over billy. i think billy and silver possibly could have taken flint down together if they were both truly in it, but silver didn't want to risk that chance because he knew the power of having flint's name. in the beginning of treasure island we see that 20ish year after flint's "retirement" his name is still feared even in england. bones was well-respected as a youth, even by vane in black sails, and had a good trajectory - but ultimately his sense of justice, an initially good characteristic, quickly became his downfall on the walrus as he became obsessed with the injustices of flint, to the point where his own potential for greatness was shattered in trying to overcorrect "the sins of the father." that concept, "the sins of the father," really applies to flint/billy overall.

in contrast, i see silver as flint's "true heir" or "chosen heir," and the better half of his son-duo in this interpretation. where billy inherited the revenge theme, silver has inherited more of the cunning. although as we see from his account books in treasure island, and from his command in black sails, billy is also known for being extremely intelligent, he is not as intelligent in the ways of manipulation/cunning as silver is, precisely because of his sense for justice which later becomes his achilles heel as it morphs into a sense of revenge. billy's attempt at righting flint's wrongs, & ultimately overcorrecting, is also a common type of error for children of neglectful parents irl.

(Below is taken from an earlier draft of this post & is possibly repetitive but not enough to not include it)

the decisions of the black sails creators to adapt billy for us billy as an adorable aspiring youth and show us their interpretation of how he was slowly driven mad from flint because of the trauma induced from the moral dilemma that flint put on his shoulders (the murder of singleton & the blank page, gates, etc. from the beginning), the injustice and guilt of which slowly sucked all the innocence out of him and turned him into (as we're told from others) a bitter captain who has essentially inherited a lot of flint's worse traits, like being hard on his men, being obsessive to the point of delusion about injustice and about the gold, and being a drunk like we're told flint ends up as in treasure island.

billy inherits so much from flint and it's tragic. i love flint in black sails, but in billy's story in the series, flint is his villain. to him, flint is an imposing, king lear esque fucked up father figure (as he told billy "i am your king" after billy said they had no kings).

also marvelling at the black sails creators decisions to make both flint/billy tied to the navy, and to make billy's parents progressives who protested forced conscription - the fact that billy was forcefully conscripted considering his background is just so similar to the injustices faced by flint(mcgraw) and the hamiltons imo.

i think billy coming back into the story after being kidnapped by the royal navy was sort of a wasted opportunity to explore his character & how he became further embittered/mad/disenchanted with life. i also think flint was sort of haunted by billy a little in black sails the way billy is haunted by flint in treasure island.

i also find it so interesting that billy and the other pirates visited flint before he died - i quote-searched the book to re-read passages mentioning flint but whenever the other pirates talk about his death, even when silver is present, i don't think it's ever made explicitly clear if silver was there at flint's death or not, but i think we can possibly assume so from the way he's otherwise certain that flint is dead, and talks about his blue face, referencing how the other pirates who were there said flint's face turned blue before/after he died. but what's really interesting is that above anyone else it was billy that acquired the map and not silver...

so in a way billy is his actual heir in the end and not silver... maybe because billy never went looking for it unlike silver, who he feared til he died? did flint tell billy not to let silver have it, and if so, why? in the end of treasure island silver takes only part of it and disappears, as jim says, presumably to live a quiet life with his wife and parrot, a life all the pirates wanted, whereas billy died alone and more miserable than flint (aside from jim, the closest thing he had to a friend).

i just love thinking of billy and flint's dynamic through billy's eyes. him becoming totally obsessed with this tyrannical captain and then sort of inadvertently becoming like him. god.

but at the same time i marvel at how billy still retains a lot of his fire to the end, like his singing (which we dont see in black sails lol) and his insistence on doing whatever he wants (like drinking himself to death, or in black sails, not giving in to silver's plans/refusing to ever trust flint or align with him). and all this sort of applies to silver and flint too but silver inherited more of flint's entertaining, less tragic aspects like his leadership skills, manipulative skills, charm, etc.

flint brings out different qualities in people. does he make silver stronger and billy weaker - or were they both going those routes anyway? does flint actually lead to various characters to doom or would they have gone that route without him? how much of billy's story is he responsible for and how much is flint responsible for? these are really philosophical questions about free will and what we can and cannot control. billy's story is all about moral dilemma and how sometimes in life there will be difficult questions that have no easy answers, or that we are never capable of answering.

[gallifreywhere]

The Doctor, with only his third brain lobe functioning, stood with them, but said nothing. He smiled as he looked out at the view, but his smile was vacant.

'Wonder how long he'll be?' said Jenny.

'If he survives,' said Nanny.

'He'd better,' replied Jenny. 'A world without the Doctor would be a poorer place.'

(From Rebellion on Treasure Island, by Bali Rai)