#but like... you don't exactly get the sense izzy has a history of leadership positions

[ladyluscinia]

I did not say anything when that "Why do you assume Izzy is working class?" post was going around because a) I didn't have time, and b) I think OFMD pretty clearly establishes that lower / working class is the default for getting into "boat based criminal" as a career choice and anything other than that is weird (see Stede's crew of weirdos). So I think if you want to read Izzy as something other than working class in canon (presumably to take the wind out of that as a conflict between him and Stede), the burden of evidence is more on you than me.

But now I am seeing various posts about people deciding they support different headcanons on Izzy's backstory - which is fandom having fun as fandom does - only several are about him having a navy background instead? And like... people do realize that's not mutually exclusive from being poor, right?

Joining the navy because you were broke and had nowhere else to go was a big thing. You can't staff a military force exclusively with people of means because they also have the means to not want to die for you. Sure the upper ranks were likely restricted in numerous ways to people born to right family or with enough money / the right friends and mentors (like the Badmintons), but someone could do at least somewhat decently without any of that. The cost was just that it could really fucking suck. Plus this is a time when snatching up random people (often poor and young) and pressing them into service was a thing, meaning they could either adapt or desert.

Also success in the navy would not necessarily give Izzy a comfortable amount of wealth (private sailing wages were almost always higher, sometimes double or more, because the navy didn't like to pay). In fact, I think a navy background for a lower class Izzy makes a lot of sense and would have fostered resentment for the upper classes even more. Imagine living in miserable conditions making the best salary someone of your station could probably expect to make because you've worked hard and figured out a completely shit system, but you can't even dream of actually making this into a truly comfortable / successful career (only officers had careers) because you don't have the right name or the rich friends or the uncle who could have had the captain himself looking out for you since you were dropped on this ship at 11. All to die for the glory of a king who thinks you are a gutter rat.

Like there's a reason naval desertion was so common.