#the first time Stede meets Izzy he fuckin BESTS HIM ON SWORDFIGHT??? WHAT THE- I ONLY REMEMBERED IZZY WAS GOING TO APPEAR ON THIS EPISODE

[merrily-radiant]

I finished rewatching Our Flags Means Death yesterday bc I didnt remember much of it except that there were gay (AS FUCK) pirates in it (and by god was I right) but what my attention damaged little brain failed to remind me was how fucking gOOD IT IS??? LIKE???? HELLO????

[triflesandparsnips]

So here's a theory I'm just going to toss into the pot to see how it changes the flavor of the soup--

Izzy Hands, current on-the-spot villain, sweating homophobia, and ruining everybody's lives in the pursuit of some kind of unattainable piratical perfection... what if.

What if Izzy is nonbinary.

(he/his, but gender is First Mate)

WHERE'S THIS COMING FROM? I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED.

Let me first rewind a bit. (And if you need a refresher, may I interest you in this scene pack that was very enlightening.)

At the top of season 1, when we first get introduced to Izzy, he's a lot more, well, playful (in his Izzy way) before he and Stede became mortal fuckin enemies or whatever.

"We're just humble wanderers, passing through"

"Dibs, y'say?"

Figure 1. Legendary swordfighter cuts tit window in stranger's shirt for shits, giggles

He's, like, annoyed about following Stede on Ed's orders, but largely because Ed's poking him about it ("And he bested you at swordplay") and making him do stupid errands ("Oh, Edward, can't I just send the boys?") -- but he's still cool and vaguely flirty in the noncommittal way That All Pirates (Named Blackbeard) Do when he finds Stede at Spanish Jackie's.

Leaning against the wall, having a cool line to say as an intro ("I've a few colleagues in there")

Sauntering forward while providing non-relevant info that could, in fact, be interpreted as flattery if Stede had wanted to see it that way -- specifically, Izzy saying he fuckin hates Spanish Jackie's while also getting close to Stede, which could be read as 'but I came anyway to see you'

Figure 2. Walls: Are You Leaning Back Against Enough of Them? Meet the pirate who's vowed to pose against them all, probably while doing something interesting off-camera with his hips

At this point in the conversation, Izzy still has plenty of time to tell Stede who his boss is, that it is in fact Blackbeard who's looking for his attention, and Izzy could continue getting into Stede's personal space and subtly lean on things and talk shit about Jackie's... but then Stede calls him Iggy.

And that's when Izzy actually gets pissed off. From that point on, we're in Dread Enemy territory, because Izzy Hands has a thing about names and titles and identity -- as I've said in previous meta:

What he calls people, and in what context, has meaning to him, and I suspect what people call him has meaning that he may believe everyone else is aware of when, in fact, nobody fucking is.

(Izzy's pronouns are also fuck/off)

SO WHAT CHANGES

Izzy's whole fucking deal starts with Stede misnaming him. Stede, once again, is a catalyst for change -- Izzy hasn't had to deal with people being shit to him for years. I mean, even at his angriest in their actual stand-off just the episode before, he didn't have the sheer rage popping through that we get at Spanish Jackie's.

Figure 3. A tense annoyance transmogrified into annoyed acceptance (with aid of released breath and delicately applied pointy thing).

Figure 4. Overwhelming tension and coiled violence. Application of pointy thing unlikely to provide much assistance in this scenario.

Suddenly Izzy has to, like, deal with that. This is the start of things getting immeasurably messier in Izzy's previously tidy mindscape.

Because the thing. The thing is. The thing. Is that the SHEER NARRATIVE GLARE of Ed and Stede's romance makes it hard to see that Izzy Hands is, to be honest, spending season 1 here taking a trip on the Issues Express.

Prior to Stede fuckin Bonnet misnaming him, Izzy Hands is living a pretty okay life!

He appears to have regular duties, including light investigation into the new pirate everyone's talking about

Evidently has a reasonable enough relationship with the native population that he can casually buy English officers off of them

Has a standard for reporting to Ed that doesn't involve poking his fingies into candles and lying badly

Doesn't have shit to say about messy ships, what with the Hot Topic store that vomited over the deck of the Queen Anne with malice aforethought

With Stede poking at him, though... he's suddenly thinking about things, and crucially, not wanting to think about things. A whole lot of Izzy's whole fucking Deal is a result of him having to think about and process through shit that he hasn't had to deal with in years, if ever, in an attempt to both course-correct and maintain his sense of status quo. We see this play out in a couple of ways --

the way he addresses Ed (and how the forms of address Izzy's "okay" with using with Ed changes to meet Izzy's needs -- see @mikimeiko's supercut for a review)

his own no-longer-playful attitude toward stuff -- the last of which, I would hazard, actually appears when he just wanders into the stores with his cup of coffee to lean and drink while waiting for Pete and Lucius to notice he's there (and from which he's thrown off when first Lucius and Pete are... not particularly bothered by it, and then when Izzy tries to compensate, it goes even more poorly, and then--)

Figure 5. Upon being misnamed "Iggy" a second time, local Angry Ball of Emotions decides to once again forget that his weapon of choice requires several feet of working room to actually be effective

The "solutions" Izzy comes up with to deal with all this Everything happening around him (and to him) are both intentional and unintentional on his part -- most of them are devoted to returning to a status quo, the place where he was not in turmoil.

Stede Bonnet made him feel bad about his name; okay, lie to Ed about Bonnet so they never have to see him again and/or maybe Ed kills Bonnet for being mean. (About Ed. Not about Izzy. Izzy does not tell Ed about the name thing, and gosh that's interesting.)

Now Ed and Bonnet are on the same ship and Ed's not being the ship captain Izzy is familiar with, which must be because... Bonnet's around? Makes sense, fine, sure, so get rid of Bonnet, this is clearly the solution once again. How to do that? Logic about Ed's own pet policy? Doesn't work. Duel? Also doesn't work. Calico Jack? Kind of a long-shot, still doesn't work. The English? Against all odds somehow still doesn't work.

And then finally, though, Bonnet is gone! Hooray status quo! So that means we're all set here, everything back to nor-- nope. Nope. Um. Ed is still changing, getting more gender nonconforming, wanting to talk things out? And Izzy can't even blame it on Stede being around? Nope, fuck that, too much thinking there, too much wondering what it means to be GNC and also talking is terrible, let's just go back to when things were normal, pre-Bonnet, pre-boyfriends, yup, yup, I only serve Blackbeard, yeah THIS'LL fix things, okay babe sure.

(Concept: Edward "Blackbeard" Teach as the man on which Izzy Hands modeled masculinity because he himself didn't have a good innate understanding of his own gender outside of whatever biological bits seemed to match up, resulting in the fracturing of Izzy's sense of self when Ed starts experimenting with his own presentation -- even though perhaps Izzy latched onto Ed in the first place because Ed himself is already nonconforming, and also god, let Ed live his life, Izzy, jfc, not everything is about you.)

(Additional note: It is very hard to not be a self-centered asshole when your entire sense of self is a trainwreck and you can barely piece together why. Also, therapy hadn't been invented yet, and even top-of-the-line medical theory was pretty sure sad feelings came from Animal Spirits in your brain and/or spleen, so honestly it's a goddamn miracle any of these characters made it all the way to the end of the season, I don't actually blame any of them for being goddamn disasters in this regard.)

All this drive toward the status quo, btw, is an excellent bit of motivation to have in contrast/conversation with both Stede's and Ed's motivations -- because they're trying to escape their status quo, and only return to it when they find themselves in danger and scared. Izzy, on the other hand, feels in danger and scared when out of the status quo. They all try to get back to the status quo, and they all make increasingly poor decisions in their attempts to do so, but their motivations are diametrically opposed, and their personal timelines are out of step (Izzy starts very early on; Stede starts around the time he finds out he's been declared dead but really when Chauncey shoots himself; Ed starts with Izzy's threat against him).

Figure 6. A bullshit illustration of a poorly explained theory.

The need to move with/against the tide of change is sufficiently strong in all three of them to create narrative momentum. Specifically, with regard to moving toward change:

Stede incites change to escape the suicidal-ideation-inducing trap of his heteroconforming life;

through Stede, Ed discovers the possibility of change to escape the suicidal-ideation-inducing endless rat-race of piracy;

in this case, Izzy is not a willing participant in change, and feels threatened by it.

When the climax of the season approaches, we see the build of tension happening through all their actions against change:

Izzy incites multiple returns to status quo to escape the (suicidal-ideation-inducing?) changes appearing in his life without, he feels, his consent -- he seeks safety;

Stede backtracks in order to return to status quo and escape (what he perceives to be) the negative consequences of his actions toward change -- he seeks safety;

Ed backtracks to match what he believes to be Izzy's status quo (the caricature of Blackbeard, itself already an over-compensation on Izzy's part), done in response to the threat from Izzy -- he, you guessed it, seeks safety.

They're all doing such similar things, and they're all doing it for such wildly different -- but related -- reasons. Which brings me to...

WHAT IS IZZY HIDING FROM?

Well, I already said it before, but: Izzy Hands. Might be nonbinary.

(Izzy's gender is None Of Your Fucking Business)

Why am I aiming my theory in that direction? Let's start with how this show really likes its parallels. So what's the deal with these three?

Stede: Is already accepting of his nonconformity; he needs to discover the joy of queer attraction

Ed: Is already accepting of his queer attractions; he needs to discover the joy of queer nonconformity

Izzy: Hasn't accepted any of that in himself, which is why he's the most scared perhaps -- he needs to discover the joy of queer attraction and queer nonconformity, which in turn will bring him (as well as Stede and Ed, in their quests) to queer identity

So outside of his many many issues with Stede and Ed in particular, how do we see Izzy's need for queer attraction/nonconformity/identity reflected in the narrative? Well:

Actors can't be trusted and the story isn't "real" until we see it on-screen, but: Con has mentioned that the two people that really knock Izzy on his head are Lucius (definitely the attraction one) and Jim (??? perhaps... nonconformity?)

Speaking of Jim, and why I'm intrigued by this nonbinary theory, Izzy "let me be as insulting as possible to the openly queer people on board" Hands still uses Jim's goddamn pronouns

Figure 7. The absolute most surprising character moment in the entire show, I'm pretty sure.

Back to how you can't trust actors worth a damn: Vico Ortiz fucking loves cosplaying as Izzy and evidently has whole theories about how the two characters would vibe together. You know how the queer folk tend to find one another? Yeah, that.

If Izzy's whole thing about Ed's nonconforming can be considered a blow to the masculinity that Izzy has mirrored his own on... what's up with Jim, then? Jim's got all the masculine traits that Izzy admires. Ruthlessness. Competence. Knives. And yet-- Jim is... Jim? Jim doesn't identify as a man. Jim doesn't identify as a woman. Jim identifies as a goddamn threat.

What does Izzy want to be?

What could Izzy be?

Listen: figuring out your shit? Is hard. And if you think you've got it figured out -- or that it's the best it's going to be -- then why rock the boat?

Izzy's gender is a total non-issue at the start of the show. Why would it be? He's got an identity: it's "Izzy Hands, Blackbeard's First Mate." He doesn't need anything else, and we get a pretty decent opportunity to at least see how he was prior to all this shit going down -- he was playful. He was the sort of person that maybe you could see being fun enough for Ed to want to point neat shit out to him.

Until Stede fucking Bonnet calls him Iggy.

Until Blackbeard starts being more Ed than Blackbeard.

Until he's not even on the crew anymore, he's not a first mate, he's nothing--

Izzy has his chosen identity broken down to nothing. And he makes terrible decisions to try and regain it. Get rid of Stede and frighten everyone else; now his name is his own again. Sell out to the English and then acquiesce to Ed returning as captain; now he's back to crew and first mate. The last thing left... is Blackbeard. And good golly, he definitely does something about that too.

The thing is, identity is... malleable. You change. Izzy didn't want that, but guess what, buddy, the tide doesn't stop just because you want your sandcastles to stay pristine. He does everything he can -- above and beyond what's reasonable or moral -- to get back to where he started, but everyone's too changed in the interim to reset exactly. And that includes Izzy Hands himself.

WHICH BRINGS US TO SEASON 2

I don't make the rules, but with regard to the story:

Even if you disagree with my overall theory here, pirate data science says that Izzy is, for whatever reason, important in this narrative, and that's unlikely to stop in season 2

David Jenkins is fascinated by Izzy, and you know how writers get about characters they're fascinated with

At the start of season 2, I bet Izzy has had a lot of time to think about a lot of different things now that everything's back to "status quo" and everything is also, not coincidentally, fucking terrible. So wouldn't it be interesting if Izzy finds himself:

taking care of and keeping secret a waterlogged Lucius -- and Definitely Not Asking Questions about being gay for dudes

(Lucius asks "who cares if it makes you happy?")

taking care of and working with Jim -- and Definitely Not Asking Questions about gender and labels

(Jim asks "whose opinion matters more than your own?")

ALL WHILE dealing with his role -- and culpability -- in the creation of the whole Kraken / Stede A-plot

(at night, when Izzy is alone and frightened in the dark, he whispers, "who are you, Izzy Hands, when there's nothing left to lose?")

(and it may be some time -- maybe a whole 'nother season -- before he can manage to ask and answer the real question...)

"who could I be, if I let myself?"