Black Sails - Blog Posts
That's what's so special about him!
That he is not the kind of character (for his role, in fact) one would expect to have this deep, actually introvert kind of personality. And it clashes so much with his 'shouting order-self' we get to see while he is on action, but I think that EXACTLY because he has actually that kind of personality there wouldn't have probably been any other ways than that for him to relate with people around him.
Also, it's such a great depiction of how in the end everyone has to morph their own selves -even painfully- in the shape more fitted to survive in the enviroment they have to be. Which is sad but it's exactly how his character came to be and it's what makes him special because it makes him not only a vengeful warrior but also a broken neurodivergent human who has to face a world that has not enough space for people like him.
A dragon in the darkness, indeed.
thinking about flint's awkwardness around people, one of my favourite acting choices made by toby stephens (who truly never misses) is in the scene where thomas goes to kiss flint. he cups his face, holds his gaze and flint looks at him trapped. but when he comes closer flint just. flinches. his face jerks slightly back as if to avoid a blow. his are eyes pained like he's already been hit. it's such a panicked little twitch, instinctive and quickly tamed, that i hesitate to put it to rational considerations about the consequences of kissing a man. i always felt it was a moment of profound shyness and unease in the face of tenderness. again, i find it really endearing and i am forever surprised they went for this complex mix of sweetness, vulnerability and strength and competence in a male protagonist of a show covering the role of a warrior leader.
This aspect, at least for me, is definitely what did the magic. I mean, I don't think I'd be here talking about it if it hadn't included such an important theme (current for those times but still very current today too).
Probably is because I understand it personally , but also I think you don't necessarily have to experience something first hand in order to understand it and emphatize with it. So yes, I think there are also people foreign to this problem who can appreciate it.
Moreover, I heard also of a lot of people which are part of this problem on the other side, the one which causes it, that however enjoy very much the show, so I guess each one can find their own attractive aspect in it.
Just...don't know, maybe emphatize with it about this subject specifically makes the like for the show way more personal, in a way. But it's not necessarily the only way to like it.
I wonder what the cishet experience of Black Sails is like — or more accurately I suppose the experience of the show for people who have not known shame and who have not been made to feel like monsters, for one reason or another.
Because there is something so compelling to me about Flint's rage—and his ruthlessness. There is something so satisfying to the way he turns into a monster because that's what England tells him he is, and the way he lies and kills and believes in a better, different, impossible world and will stop at nothing to fight for it—even if the fight is doomed from the start. "This ends when England apologises to me," he says and all I can say in return is go off king.
I wonder what this show is like for the normies who never felt that rage—and that shame—burning under their skin and had to swallow it down.
It absolutely is one of my favourite episodes too, even if it's so sad. Like...Miranda /shines/ (she always does, but damn, here she is *blinding*) and the closeness between her and Flint is so evident here, two survivors who has become each other's survival until one of them is not anymore.
My goddess, it hurts so much.
Episode 17 of Black Sails is peak television. It's arguably my favorite episode of the show and Miranda's death (I didn't put the entire thing because it's too long but it's so fucking great, the scene itself for me starts when she asks about the clock) is my favorite in the history of television: how we are lead to it throughout little moments in the episode, how it happens and the massive implications it has on Flint as a character and in the show itself.
Because this is it, Flint was betrayed a second time. Every time he tries to do the right thing, it backfires. And now he has lost the only person as important to him as Thomas, there is no one who really knows him anymore.
He now has no reason to hold back anymore.
PS: If Gates and Billy made me sad, you wouldn't believe how devastated I feel about Miranda and Thomas.
Flint and Eleonor’s “reunion” in ep.4x4 honestly got me so emotional since the moment when they look at each other through the fort's doors.
Despite being on opposite sides, despite having both lost and conquered it all multiple times, that connection between them, that trust, that understanding is still there.
I loved their relationship in season one and two so much. I think what they shared and actually kept sharing until the end was some really special bond.
They've been working together to reach a shared goal, of course, a goal that just the two of them seemed to see and believe in, or to care about, but I think there was more to it than just that.
Nassau itself, and the freedom that it would have allowed them, had a different meaning for each one of them and the chains that kept them from truly gaining that freedom were of different nature, but I think that above all they were two persons able to recognize one another.
They were very different, but also very similar under some aspects, and I think that what they had most in common was their loneliness.
They were often surrounded by people, and had also a few ones strictly related to them or that sincerely loved them (just, very few), but over that, they both had a dimension of their own when they were fated to be forever lonely. Those special parts of themselves (good and bad, just parts of their personality) that no one had been or would ever be able to truly see or understand. They both had this and even if they themselves couldn't reach that dimension of each other they could just feel that they both had that. This is what I mean when I talk about recognizing one another. Just looking at the other person and knowing that, despite all the differences, they will always be able to understand you, even without necessarily approving your choices, just because they are just the same as you, because they know that feeling of having to make that choice -dealing with the world and with your own self- all alone.
And this, joined with their incredible ability to survive and to (almost) always end up “ruling things” somehow, definitely generated also a great deal of respect towards each other, and is what I think bound them the most for so long.
I found very endearing that Flint was in the end the last one she saw before dying: the tenderness with which he lays her head on the ground, the sadness of the moment (both for her death and for him losing yet another one of his loved ones), the meaningful burning house on the background…it really felt terrible, even if it's a great scene. It has such an emotional impact on me. 😢😢😢
I loved all the hints to Eleonor's true nature that are given in ep.4x6 (the one of her death), at least the one that I think it to be. I felt like in the end she came back to what she used to be, somehow (even if she never really changed, she was just pretending), and as always, everything ends just like it started (even if not exactly).
First Flint asked her if it would be impossible for her to join them once again and yes, I think that would be impossible because she had lost and given away way too much as a price to her previous life as a “pirate”, but the thing is that the independence of the pirates is in her true nature. And she claims it back each time she is left by her own or just each time she has the chance to. It happens for different reasons and under different motivations, but basically it's just breaking free from any kind of power which may try to control her.
In fact, she regained control on the situation as soon as Rogers went away, even if she did it for him too.
I think she was just searching for a wayout after all, because all her life she had had to be with the pirates’ side or with the “civilized” side but neither of them could offer her the freedom she really needed.
And I believe that with Madi she found a third way. It's very endearing to me how soon and naturally they get close to each other once again after so many years.
When she talks to her she says:
“I've found myself thinking about it. Of walking away from Nassau, from England, from civilization. One can be happy that way, can't they? A life of isolation and uncertainty as long as it is lived with someone you love and who loves you back. It is possible, isn't it?”
This is her third way. And I think that by this point (having almost nothing to lose anymore and feeling deep inside of her the real possibility of WR's betrayal) she was seriously contemplating the possibility of just leaving it all behind and going away with Madi, back with the only family she had ever known.
And it's so sad because she tried as a ruler, tired as a daughter, tried as a friend and tried as a lover, tried as a wife and tried as a sister and in the end it was never enough and way too much at the same time.
…yeah, they have been too mean to her. She deserved at least the chance to try as a mother.
This is exactly the spirit of the show. This is what Thomas would say about their war (well, his own war too). This is what makes this show so dear and personal to me. The key to all historical changes.
As Woodes Rogers once said:
"You expect the world to become what you want it to be despite all avaliable evidence and experience to the contrary."
Yes, this is what they all have been doing through the whole show. WR included.
Long live Black Sails.
The thing is. The thing is about black sails is. What did they get in the end for all their pain and suffering and blood? Well, nothing. Absolutely nothing. In the end it all came down to nothing and it meant nothing and they were remembered in history as monsters and died as monsters. But yet it meant everything. They failed, every single one of them, but the fact that they failed meant they tried and that meant everything. They failed in the end, so what was the point of it all? Wouldn't it be better off if none of them had tried, if none of them had bled and struggled and fought or even met? But THAT is the point! The point was in the living, not in the dying, not in the failing! It was in the trying! The way they tried because of each other and for each other! The way they tried to beat against something that could not and would not ever move in their lifetimes! Flint tried for Thomas and Miranda tried for Flint and Miranda tried for Thomas and Silver tried for Flint and Mr. Gates tried for Flint and Max tried for Eleanor and Eleanor tried for Max and Charles Vane tried for Elaenor and Mr. Scott tried for Eleanor and Mr. Scott tried for Madi and Silver tried for his men and Billy tried tried tried and the Maroon Queen tried and Madi tried for freedom and Jack tried and Anne tried And Jack tried for Anne and Anne tried for Jack and Anne tried for Max and Max tried for Anne, and Eleanor's grandmother tried for her and Eleanor tried for Woodes Rogers and Woodes Rogers tried for her, and Woodes Rogers tried and Edward Teach tried for Charles Vane and Jack tried for Charles Vane and on Skull island, Silver may or may not have tried one last time and they all tried and it meant nothing and yet everything. Everything. Because the point was not the losing, but that they fought at all to win.
"What's going on in this house is not a simple affair." ~ she said.
"It is not." ~ he replied.
I think what he really meant here was not "it's something worse", but "it's something more". It's something that changed our whole lives.
Even if I can't help blaming him in this scene for not listening to her, I have to say that his way of feeling things deeply without ever letting them show completely is so precious to me.
This conversation is perfect, seen in the aftermath.
It perfectly depicts these two amazing characters in all their shades.
"She loved the sea for its storms alone, and the green only when it grew scattered among ruins."
G. Flaubert
Miranda Barlow's aesthetic.
I love so much this character and her story and I think she would have liked very much Madame Bovary if she had the chance to read it.
(We all know what was written in that burning letter, don't we? I think it was important to include that too about her)
Everything we’ve put that ship though and she just refuses to die. It’s fucking unnatural. Silver 4.05
Black Sails episode XV and the ownership of your life. Relying on others is what allows your voice to matter because there's now people who listen to it. It's what gives you purpose because you're now part of a community who knows your name and cares for you. You exist. But this cannot be at the detriment of your own purpose, your own goals. Rely on others, but don't fall into codependency. Don't let them form your identity for you.
For every man in your camp, there are thousands somewhere in the West Indies living under the same yoke, chained in fields, pressed on ships, sold into indenture. When they see a sitting governor protected by His Majesty’s Navy, deposed by an alliance of pirates and slaves, how many consider joining that fight? How many thousands of men will flock to Nassau, join your ranks, and help you defend it?
My 2022 rewind of all my fandoms and favorite stuff I've seen this year ! I'm definitely not an editor but I love keeping track in such a fun way.
Video length: 3 minutes (includes some curse words)
Song: Le Freak, CHIC
Happy New Year!
This post is an outlier from the usual mythos tangents
I tried to watch Black Sails, and I fear that I might be missing something. Like, the costuming and acting is really good (and the opening slaps), but the first episode felt…not interesting? Does it pick up later? I feel bad since a lot of people really like the show. All respect to people who do like the show though, I don’t have anything really against it.
If I’m not missing something, are there any other pirate shows you mates would recommend? I’ve only really seen Pirates of the Caribbean and Our Flag Means Death.