#my gearing up for college essays is me writing this in the span of two hours and leaving it largely unproofread and unedited

[lobster-risotto]

Dynamic Analysis of SilverFlint and the Parallels with Take Me To Church by Hozier

(Also could be titled as: Flint needs a hug and therapy)

I associate this song with silverflint—especially Flint—not through a religious turmoil or religious trauma sense (shocking, honestly, considering I’ve spent every English class in college exploring religious trauma and the appearances of religion in media). I’d argue, in fact, that both of their stances on religion are left extremely ambiguous for a reason. Audiences assume through canon-period education and beliefs that they were both almost definitely some type of religious, but I believe it to be entirely unrelated to Flint’s shame.

In fact, it was never meant to be about anything but Flint’s relationship with his own self-actualization and self-image. Thomas existed as a direct challenge to that, by redefining what it means to be a man—or, rather, to be masculine—and to also be true to himself.

Silver, on the other hand, existed as a challenge to the man he became once he had fully internalized that shame and unbalanced the perfectly crafted idea Flint had of himself. Silver was always intended to make Flint reconsider who he was trying to prove himself to, and if that person was actually himself.

Now, to get into the actual point of this. Throughout, I choose to connect “She” to two different people: Miranda and Silver, and I also connect Heaven to England and the Navy, or even in a broader sense, society and civilization as a whole.

My lover's got humor / She's the giggle at a funeral / Knows everybody's disapproval / I should've worshiped her sooner / If the Heavens ever did speak / She's the last true mouthpiece

In this portion, “She” is Miranda, and we will see a swap from her to Silver later through the song. In the flashbacks to when he and Miranda were first becoming involved, she told him to exist without fear of the consequence of a rumor. In part, it heavily motivated his shame early on, at least, with Miranda and her being a married noblewoman. She lived without a care for the danger involved and would stare consequence in the face before hiding from it. “She’s the giggle at a funeral / I should’ve worshipped her sooner” is her death, though the funeral, I’d say, is the death of who they were before leaving England. She’s the final source of joy for Flint, and his final lifeline to Thomas and what Flint used to be. However, she is the “last true mouth piece” and carries the final reminder for Flint that they are not, and have never been, home in Nassau. It’s the remaining grasp of England and of what he used to be.

Every Sunday's getting more bleak / A fresh poison each week / "We were born sick", you heard them say it

This is Flint’s final descent into piracy, and choosing to let shame consume him in a way that functioned as a motivator for vengeance. The “poison” being the ideology and back-and-forth nature of England’s interests being the abolition of piracy, but will refuse to stand on the shores of Nassau and understand why pirates exist. Their sickness is the refusal to become part of England, and how the sins of men committing acts of piracy were simply part of them and it was unavoidable, predetermined and in their nature, and the good men and women of England would never dare to be so horrific. Hence why Flint was always a major threat, because he was a good man of England. This is why Peter Ashe needed to use a literal smear campaign against him, by him, and spoken from him to abolish piracy. Because, then, no man would choose piracy, as the strongest of them all was still just a sinful man who dared to love another man. But if they hid it, if they just told people that they would pardon pirates, and Flint, well, not a single person could accept that because they had been told of the monsters of Nassau and the terrifying Captain Flint.

My church offers no absolutes / She tells me, "Worship in the bedroom"

This is simple: Miranda is the church (his home) and this is when she tells him they will leave instead of fight to free Thomas. In this, she reinstates his shame and directly contradicts everything he believed of her.

The only Heaven I'll be sent to / Is when I'm alone with you / I was born sick, but I love it / Command me to be well / A-, Amen, Amen, Amen

This is where Silver enters the dynamic, but just a little. I think this encompasses all of their relationship. First, when Flint falls in love: “The only Heaven I’ll be sent to / Is when I’m alone with you” with “you” being Silver (also his shame, by the way, since the unbearably exist as a whole to Flint) and “heaven” being his realization that Thomas is never coming back, and that Nassau and Miranda were never going to be a replacement for the way he feels when he loves a man. Silver reteaches him why shame stopped mattering, but he brings with him the understanding that the shame have never once went away entirely. He learned with Thomas how to exist with love and shame at the same time, and that it was okay to be afraid of how he felt, but that it wasn’t an excuse to suffer without the thing he needs most. “I was born sick, but I love it” is Flint knowing that what he feels about his love for men, Thomas and Silver, particularly, is always going to be shadowed by what he was taught to feel about it, and also what he has done because of it. Finally, “Command me to be well” is Silver standing in the forest with him, begging him to leave there with him and to leave the war behind. Quite literally, Flint needed to be commanded to stop, but he always managed to find himself being the commander. Flint, in my opinion, had always wanted to be forced to end the war or his life in some way, and Silver eventually gives him that.

If I'm a pagan of the good times / My lover's the sunlight

I think this is Flint’s description of his love for Thomas. But I’m still on the fence about this, too, as it could be his description of Silver. However, later verse works better, imo.  

To keep the Goddess on my side / She demands a sacrifice / Drain the whole sea / Get something shiny / Something meaty for the main course / That's a fine looking high horse / What you got in the stable? / We've a lot of starving faithful

There are two meanings to “To keep the Goddess on my side / She demands a sacrifice” and both gut me, so I will share them both.

Firstly, it could be construed as a direct reference to Miranda finding Thomas’ father and having Flint kill him, and how he felt as though without the sacrifice, it would have been a betrayal to her, Thomas, and himself.

Secondly, this (and the rest of the verse, really) is Silver’s point of view of Flint’s (the “Goddess”) war. I think it drains him in a way he was never able to describe until he’s got Flint at gunpoint. Everything with Flint was more than he had bargained for, and he watched the crew give up every ounce of themselves for the cause, people died for the cause, homes burned for the cause, and yet, it wasn’t enough. It’s his realization that Flint, even if he won Nassau would find that (to use Flint’s words) “her comfort will grow stale”, and would never truly rest until he saw everything burn.

That looks tasty / That looks plenty / This is hungry work

If Flint could put into words what the “the darkness” he and Silver possess would say and sound like, this is what it would say. He looks out upon Nassau, and England, and Charles Town, and realizes to himself that nothing would ever burn hot enough to satisfy the rage inside of him.

Take me to church / I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies / I'll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife / Offer me my deathless death / Good God, let me give you my life

The moment where Flint, in the cages, chooses to sacrifice himself for the cause and for the lives of his crew and Silver, he’s accepted it. He’s accepted death, he’s accepted Silver, and he’s accepted shame. I think this is also how he felt when he had first agreed to Peter Ashe’s offer to smear his name to bring Thomas’ vision to reality and free himself from being trapped in this never ending loop of rage and turmoil. I think, this, is Flint in his weakest moments, wishing his sacrifice could be enough to end it all. That, maybe, his death would end it all, once and for all, and he could rest without being tormented by it all. By England, by shame, by sacrifice.

No masters or kings when the ritual begins / There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin

So, this one hurts. This is Flint’s love. In every single way, this is his love. Every part of it, tainted with shame, but knowing that if it is love, then, it must also be right. “No masters or kings when the ritual begins” with the “masters or kings” being first, England, and second, the worst parts of himself, and the “ritual” is the involvement with Silver. I would even argue that Flint’s acceptance of shame is that which completely removes it’s power over him, and it took Thomas’ death and his words inscribed into a book for Flint to realize that there is nothing more beautiful than their love, and his and Silver’s love. I think, also, this is his ode to the man he once was, and understanding that the only place that person exists at all is when he is alone with the man he loves.

In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene / Only then I am human / Only then I am clean / Oh, oh, Amen, Amen, Amen

And finally, I would, to my own dismay, connect this to the idea that Flint is dead. Alternatively, Captain Flint is dead, he’s forced out of piracy, and learns to love without fighting with England for the loves he had already lost. Either he is with Silver, or he finds someone else, but in it’s totality and conclusiveness, Flint is gone.

After all, I think that’s what he wanted and had no way to accept it. He couldn’t accept doing nothing, because that would have left him giving up on the idea and memory of every death and sacrifice. Silver sees it, too, with his line of “It must be awful being you,” and he knows, truly, that Flint is literally suffering at the hands of his own war, his own cause. Because there was simply nothing else to do, and to sit, alone, with his feelings? Process Thomas being gone and accept it instead of exacting revenge? He couldn’t reconcile the fact that grief never stops existing, and that love persists in the person who lives when the other is dead. Flint remained a servant to his grief and patched it with rage because if he had a reason to fight or to steal or to kill, then he had a reason to never accept that the people he loves are dead. Flint never had to accept that his love killed everyone he cared about.