(no subject)
Feb. 27th, 2017 11:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwydion* "Kim Jong-nam killing: 'VX nerve agent' found on his face:" http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39073389
* "Opponent of Duterte's drugs war arrested in Philippines on drug charges:" http://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-drugs-senator-idUSKBN16301Z
* "Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media:" https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage
* "Reality Check: Is Malmo the 'rape capital' of Europe?:" http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-39056786
* "Supreme Court Reprimands Anti-LGBTQ Groups for Misgendering Trans Student Gavin Grimm:" http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2017/02/24/supreme_court_reprimands_groups_for_misgendering_gavin_grimm.html
* "Rest In Power and Peace, Chyna Gibson:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2017/02/rest-in-power-and-peace-chyna-gibson.html
* "Search for Daisy Kwok uncovers Shanghai's lost history:" http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-21/daisy-kwok-and-lost-history-of-chinese-australians-in-china/7861214
* "The History of the KKK in American Politics:" https://daily.jstor.org/history-kkk-american-politics/
* "An app to help blind people to 'see':" http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-39056979
* "Pointe break: ballet's destructive power laid bare in Sergei Polunin documentary:" https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/feb/22/sergei-polunin-documentary-dancer-steven-cantor?CMP=share_btn_tw
* "Through Donald's Eyes - SNL :"
* My router died Sunday night, seconds after I offered rp, for which I was heartily sorry, but had no means of conveying. The router had been limping on for years, and its final demise was inconvenient, but not entirely unexpected. I wrote up the latest Black Sails with no ability to check things on the Internet and while wrestling Tavy as I tried to transcribe quotes, for extra difficulty points.
I snagged a few hours sleep, then went out into snow flurries to be in line as soon as Xfinity opened. It took literal hours to get the new router working, so there went my day.
* "Let's talk about Nazis in Fiction:" https://www.thefandomentals.com/lets-talk-about-nazis-in-fiction/
* "Gandalf Leads the Way on a Journey in the Dark:" https://www.thefandomentals.com/gandalf-leads-way-journey-dark/
* "The Breaking of the Fellowship:" https://www.thefandomentals.com/breaking-fellowship-ring/
* "Orcs and Uruk-hai Bring Evil Closer to Home:" https://www.thefandomentals.com/orcs-uruk-hai-two-towers-re-read/
* "Treebeard, Ents, and Action in the Face of Uncertainty:" https://www.thefandomentals.com/treebeard-ents-action-uncertainty/
* "Penny Dreadful, Season 3, Episode 3: Good and Evil Braided Be:" http://www.fangsforthefantasy.com/2016/05/penny-dreadful-season-3-episode-3-good.html
* "Sansa, Smart:" http://turtle-paced.tumblr.com/post/155894039887/sansa-smart
* "Arya Todd Drops Out of School:" https://www.thefandomentals.com/arya-season-6-retrospective/
* Black Sails XXXIII: Decisions, Decisions!
* We open on John Silver navigating his way out of the tunnels alone on his crutches. It makes sense, all of this episode hinges on his decisions except the Woodes Rogers sections. He emerges from darkness into light and gazes up at the Fort on which so much also depends. From his expression, i think this may be the moment he got the idea for the double cross, though he pretty clearly hasn't decided who to cross yet. He is next seen in the bustle of the Pirates preparing for War.
* Billy quite sensibly asks, "Where've you been and where's Flint?" These are the first lines of the episode (excluding the scenes from previous episodes), and set up the fates that hang in balance this episode. Billy and Flint's plans being mutually exclusive and coming to a head right now. Silver explains what is to happen, before explaining what's happened. Billy hates all of it.
* Eleanor sends out Mrs. Hudson to be her messenger. This entire plan is legitimately terrifying. (Unarmed woman alone moving through an angry pirate army that would have likely raped and killed her yesterday... For serious, Mrs. hudson has great physical courage and it's amazing to me that Billy and Silver had enough control to make this work.
* We cut back to Billy and Silver watching Mrs. Hudson on her way to the boat, Billy still pointing out legitimate reasons that the entire plan is sketchy as hell. Look, I get why Flint dealt he had to do this (He was pretty sure the fort guns, ship guns, and landing party were going to cut pirate forces to pieces), and I get why Eleanor thought she had to do this (The loss of Nassau kills any chance of her desperate plea to her Grandfather saving Woodes Rogers, while the Urca gold could fix things. I get why Madi backs Flint's plan (They need to sacrifice Billy anyway if they've any hope of re-allying with the slaves who are revolting and who are their best hope of keeping the island, and Flint's plan better serves the needs of the formally enslaved people generally). This doesn't mean Billy is wrong. Did I not say last week that Flint had made an incredibly bad decision? I stand by that.
* Mrs. Hudson fills in Woodes Rogers on the plan. Woodes Rogers is clearly team hell no. Eleanor fires warning shots at her husband's ship, trusting Flint not to trick her into holing her husband's ship. Flint advises er correctly. Mrs. Hudson does as Eleanor asked, not telling him about the baby, but instead pleading with him to stop. He seems to comply, but actually simply comes up with an out of the box plan, one which I think is actually significantly worse than Flint's. Just saying. Seriously, no good is coming of any of this.
* Madi sides with Flint when Silver explains Flint's plan, for perfectly rational reasons listed above. Silver says, "Jesus, you sound exactly like him." Yep, Madi and Flint have rather a lot in common as become obvious in the period between the loss of Silver and the finding him again. They both combine a practicality that will sacrifice anything and anyone with big picture thinking. (I have often argued that this is where Flint and Eleanor tend to overlap too, and this season Billy is Flintlike in his new willingness to sacrifice people in this way to his cause). Silver asks Madi if it all ended and they had to walk away would he be enough for her. Ouch. He does not wait for the answer.
So Silver has Flint and Madi on one side and his genuine friendship with Billy Bones built up over season three mostly, and the whole Billy gave him a lot of the power he has thing which makes that betrayal worse. It was at this point, I guessed that Silver would betray Billy when push came to shove. It took me a bit longer to figure out how. (I worked it out when the note about the exchange reached Eleanor. I know, slow as molasses.)
* Is that the cell Charles was in or a different one? Can anyone tell? I need to go back later and compare shots and blocking. I think that this cell is laid out the opposite of the way Charles' was, his shaft of light being to the right of the door and Flint's to the left from our perspective. If so these are mirror images physically, even as they are mirror images in tone and consequence There is certainly the same painterly use of light and shadow in this scene. Flint is reading in a shaft of light, and something about it reminds me of early modern paintings of monks and martyrs. I do not think that is an accident. Could anyone see what he is reading? It was far too small and dark on my screen. He stands politely for Eleanor like a good ex-Navyman. He asks for news, she gives him what little she has. I thought of them meeting in her office long, long ago in Season one and how much has changed for them both as allies and enemies and individually as people.
Eleanor asks if Mr. Scott is dead in a way that clearly assumes he is. This is another mirror image of the Charles scene that centered around dead Richard Guthrie. So you have two dead father figures, one in a scene full of fury and accusations in which Charles insisted he was trying to set her free, and when in which Eleanor's whole sense of her own history is shaken by the realization a person she deliberately kept enslaved for all her claims to care about him, had a whole secret life and a family and people he was protecting from her and her terrible father. Yes, I'm all on Mr. Scott's side on this one. Last season as he was dying he said he had one daughter, not two as he was dying and good for him. Anyway, they discuss Mr. Scott's life, that he'd sent his wife and daughter away during the Spanish raid and that they are still alive, which helpfully fills in the gaps of Mr. Scott's backstory for us too. Anyway, on to Eleanor's identity crisis. This was the same Spainish raid that was so formative for Eleanor also, and that was in my head as I watched this: the horrors she witnessed as a young girl that shaped her policy decisions and personal choices later, the way it changed her relationship with her father, the way it made her so determined to never have another invasion like that again, the same invasion her husband is planning to reenact in her name by the end of the episode, and isn't that going to infuriate her? She says, "For so long I thought I knew what I was: A daughter who usurped her Father. A woman who had taken control of a wild place. Scott was proof of that, of one who saw me that way too, who substantiated it, but all that time what he saw was a girl so ambitious, she would never doubt his story. So she would continue to play the part, draw everyone's attention away from himself." Flint validates her, "You did do all those things," but she points out, "I know I did, but always with a man behind me doing his damnedst to bend it all to his benefit: My Father, Scott, Charles, you, So god many damned men. Too many God damned men." Flint points out, "Woodes Rogers. He's really so damned different from the rest of us?" he's not wrong. Neither of them are wrong on that one.
* Back to Woodes Rogers and Mrs. Hudson. "I had concerns when we first arrived in Nassau. I told her as much. That the Instincts that allowed her to survive so long there, to thrive there would eventually return and that when they did it would cause conflict between us." Ummm hmmm. So basically everything that makes the real Eleanor the real Eleanor has to be suppressed to fit in with his vision of who they are together and his vision of a tamed Nassau. She mutilated herself for a man of this ilk. Eeeew. "I fear the instincts that have awoken in her are more insidious than that. She has begun to believe again that disorder in Nassau is inevitable. That civilization is powerless either through lack of will or capacity to do anything about it. Civilization has a number of faces. To think them all powerless to alter Nassau's future is a terrible mistake." And the face he has chosen is Spain and his solution is to burn it all down. Everything Eleanor and Max built. Fuck Woodes Rogers and the ship he sailed in on. Seriously. He destroys what he claims to love. He is the worst of the pirates because he's willing to destroy everything including himself and the woman he claims to love if they does not suit his specific idea of what they should be. This is very definitely the man who keelhauled Teach three times and who committed that atrocity against the surrendered Spanish. This is the monster we've been talking about all season. He is worse than Ned Low because Ned Low was a small scale threat working for a simple idea of his own benefit, but Woodes Rogers would burn the world down for spite and profit. The others did terrible harm, no doubt, but they were all trying to build something. Woodes is a creature of vengeance and pride.
I do give him credit for intelligence and personal courage, but that doesn't change the fact that I hate him and always have. Seriously, the whole sailing into Havana harbour in the middle of a War with Spain to parlay with a man personally still furious about the atrocity just mentioned to ask them to burn his own colony to the ground took massive courage. May I point out that Thomas personally tortured and killed the younger brother of the Governor of Havana's younger brother in vengeance for Thomas' Rogers death even though there is no way a Midshipman had any say in when a ship surrenders? I'm expecting the Spanish to turn on Woodes Rogers they second it is convenient and deservedly so. Woodes Rogers is a War Criminal representing a Poiwer they are at War with and one of the victims of the war crimes is the Spanish commander's brother. How is this not guaranteed to bite Rogers; in the butt? This is maybe the worse plan in all of Black Sails. (I am telescoping the Woodes Rogers bit of the plot into one section, because I honestly don't have much more to say.)
* Back to Billy and Silver watching them refloat the pour abused walrus. Billy tries again to tempt Silver, ironically leaning on the they'll follow you, you've become the legend I thought you could be angle. That is so going to bite him in the ass, or more specifically the leg and several other body parts. Silver calls him on his bullshit, "This doesn't have anything to do with reason and you know it. You want them following me only to the extent that I in turn follow you. I'm a convenience designed to aid you in ruling over Nassau with the same uncompromising grip you vilify from Flint." There, it's in the open. Silver agrees with me that Billy is becoming Flint without noticing it himself. Silver points out they gave their word to Madi, her mother, and their people. Billy repudiates that deal as Flint's, perhaps because he missed the whole Madi/Silver relationship while waging his propaganda campaign in Nassau and then being off on the Underhill estate for the reunion that would have made it obvious. Billy's really only seen Madi as Flint's ally and that was during the period Silver was presumed dead, and so he miscalculates, thinking this simply a matter of flint's narrative capturing Silver and not a much bigger question of fundamental loyalty to the ex-slaves and not just an issue of manipulating the Bones/Flint/Silver dynamic as it was for most of season three. Billy's not wrong about the guaranteed defeat, by the way.
* Next we get Silver agonizing out loud about his decision to Israel Hands in a way that instantly reminded me of Flint in his cabin talking to silver way back when Silver first realized flint must hate himself because Flint cared how they saw him. The problem is, Israel Hands isn't Silver. He has no patience for agonizing, and he's not silver's friend; he's Silver's follower. Like Flint once told Billy and Blackbeard once told Jack Rackham, you never show weakness, fear, or indecision before crew. Silver asks Israel what he should do and explains his conflict about the decision. Israel's rebuke is harshest of all. Israel slaps him. Twice. "You don't know. You don't know. Why should I follow you if you don't know. Why would anyone! I don't give a shit what goes on in there! Fuck Flint; don't Fuck Flint! Fuck Billy, don't fuck Billy. I don't give a shit what you chose, but fucking chose! Don't make me suffer the thinking. Worry ain't a good look for a king, not in a kingdom like this where loyalty is in short supply." Israel Hands is a primeval pirate, a pirate from the early Golden Age. He was the pirate Blackbeard cast aside for the more civilized thinky Charles Vane, who in turn gave us Jack Rackham, a modern talky pirate in touch with his feelings and with relaxed ideas about gender roles. It's like one of those old fashioned charts showing the progress of evolution if you lines them up that way: Hands, Teach, Vane, Rackham. I am wondering now if maybe Israel Hands was too rigid in his thinking, violent, and chaotic for the pirate republic men like Blackbeard and Hornigold were setting up in Nassau, just as Blackbeard was too rigid, old fashioned, and violent for the Nassau Charles Vane and Eleanor Guthrie were trying to build. Now the snake is eating its tail.
I think the blocking on this one is mirror to the long ago flint scene, if I remember correctly. In both you have the leader sitting at a desk with a big widow behind him. The difference is, there was much more light in Flint's captain's cabin and for Silver, they are half in shadow. In the Flint scene, Silver was to Flint's left (our right); in the Silver Scene, Hands is to silver's right (our left). All of which makes sense as tonally these are opposite. Flint had been training silver in command that season and they were becoming friends. Here crewman Israel schools King Pirate Silver and shuts him down.
* Boat, assumed to have the Urca share is spotted at rendevue beach. Billy points out to Silver there is no time and he has to decide. I like that as Billy moves away Silver turns into shadow. The transfer plans are put in motion. I am guessing the way the sequence was shot and cut together was intended as a fake out, but I think it was pretty obvious what Silver had to do at this point. Anyway, Eleanor completely understandably questions the change in plans. Flint explains a logical tactical reason for it and reaffirms his faith in Silver. Eleanor and her group move through the tunnels to violins reminiscent of the Reigns of Castamere. Billy stands alone in front of the wrong hole, while Madi meets Eleanor, Flint, and her guard to take them to the beach. One of the interchangeable white crewmen with beards comes out to stand with Billy. (I couldn't look it up due to all night internet outage, and I really do have trouble distinguishing them). It is shot to look like a betrayal of Flint, but of course it's Billy being betrayed by Silver. "This isn't right. All those men out there you and I have fought along side, I can't believe I'm the only one who knows this isn't right." Indistinguishable bearded white crewman explains that Silver changed the narrative to make it Billy, not Featherstone or Max who intercepted the warning to the fleet. "Long John Silver. All he had to do was open his mouth, say your name, and everybody listened." Long John Silver achieves his full power, snatching control of the narrative away from Flint and Bones. "I don't think anyone actually believed it. You weren't indicted based on the facts, or our suspicions of your motives. He just said it." *shiver* If that isn't terrifying I don't know what is. So poor honest indistinguishable seaman dies defending Billy and Israel hand stabs Billy several times, but Silver stops him killing Billy, sending him off to the Underhill estate instead (theoretically because he feels bad about betraying his old honest friend but really, I think because Billy has Treasure Island plot armour).
* It turns out not to be the ketch with the treasure, but rather Jack Rackham with a cold bucket of reality for Flint and Eleanor. Jack tells him off, and rightly so, I think. "But it's all meaningless unless and until HE agrees. Woodes Rogers." Which he absolutely won't. Cut to Max and a dismayed lobsterback watching the Spanish Fleet turn up in numbers far to large for the Pirates or the Fort to stop. "I watched him defeat Edward Teach in battle, outnumbered, and through sheer force of will. I saw his blood lust with my own eyes. That man will never surrender his position here. He will never allow himself to be defeated by you or I, not because we bribed him, not because Eleanor Guthrie told him so. He simply will not allow it to happen."
*****
* Full list of Resistance and charity links has been migrated to my profile as it was getting out of hand.
* Help pay for cat food, litter, meds, medical copays: Paypal [email protected]
* Want Game of Thrones without the creepy? We desperately need new players. We are very inclusive. "Game of Bones MUSH:" gobmush.wikidot.com
* "Opponent of Duterte's drugs war arrested in Philippines on drug charges:" http://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-drugs-senator-idUSKBN16301Z
* "Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media:" https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage
* "Reality Check: Is Malmo the 'rape capital' of Europe?:" http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-39056786
* "Supreme Court Reprimands Anti-LGBTQ Groups for Misgendering Trans Student Gavin Grimm:" http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2017/02/24/supreme_court_reprimands_groups_for_misgendering_gavin_grimm.html
* "Rest In Power and Peace, Chyna Gibson:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2017/02/rest-in-power-and-peace-chyna-gibson.html
* "Search for Daisy Kwok uncovers Shanghai's lost history:" http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-21/daisy-kwok-and-lost-history-of-chinese-australians-in-china/7861214
* "The History of the KKK in American Politics:" https://daily.jstor.org/history-kkk-american-politics/
* "An app to help blind people to 'see':" http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-39056979
* "Pointe break: ballet's destructive power laid bare in Sergei Polunin documentary:" https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/feb/22/sergei-polunin-documentary-dancer-steven-cantor?CMP=share_btn_tw
* "Through Donald's Eyes - SNL :"
* My router died Sunday night, seconds after I offered rp, for which I was heartily sorry, but had no means of conveying. The router had been limping on for years, and its final demise was inconvenient, but not entirely unexpected. I wrote up the latest Black Sails with no ability to check things on the Internet and while wrestling Tavy as I tried to transcribe quotes, for extra difficulty points.
I snagged a few hours sleep, then went out into snow flurries to be in line as soon as Xfinity opened. It took literal hours to get the new router working, so there went my day.
* "Let's talk about Nazis in Fiction:" https://www.thefandomentals.com/lets-talk-about-nazis-in-fiction/
* "Gandalf Leads the Way on a Journey in the Dark:" https://www.thefandomentals.com/gandalf-leads-way-journey-dark/
* "The Breaking of the Fellowship:" https://www.thefandomentals.com/breaking-fellowship-ring/
* "Orcs and Uruk-hai Bring Evil Closer to Home:" https://www.thefandomentals.com/orcs-uruk-hai-two-towers-re-read/
* "Treebeard, Ents, and Action in the Face of Uncertainty:" https://www.thefandomentals.com/treebeard-ents-action-uncertainty/
* "Penny Dreadful, Season 3, Episode 3: Good and Evil Braided Be:" http://www.fangsforthefantasy.com/2016/05/penny-dreadful-season-3-episode-3-good.html
* "Sansa, Smart:" http://turtle-paced.tumblr.com/post/155894039887/sansa-smart
* "Arya Todd Drops Out of School:" https://www.thefandomentals.com/arya-season-6-retrospective/
* Black Sails XXXIII: Decisions, Decisions!
* We open on John Silver navigating his way out of the tunnels alone on his crutches. It makes sense, all of this episode hinges on his decisions except the Woodes Rogers sections. He emerges from darkness into light and gazes up at the Fort on which so much also depends. From his expression, i think this may be the moment he got the idea for the double cross, though he pretty clearly hasn't decided who to cross yet. He is next seen in the bustle of the Pirates preparing for War.
* Billy quite sensibly asks, "Where've you been and where's Flint?" These are the first lines of the episode (excluding the scenes from previous episodes), and set up the fates that hang in balance this episode. Billy and Flint's plans being mutually exclusive and coming to a head right now. Silver explains what is to happen, before explaining what's happened. Billy hates all of it.
* Eleanor sends out Mrs. Hudson to be her messenger. This entire plan is legitimately terrifying. (Unarmed woman alone moving through an angry pirate army that would have likely raped and killed her yesterday... For serious, Mrs. hudson has great physical courage and it's amazing to me that Billy and Silver had enough control to make this work.
* We cut back to Billy and Silver watching Mrs. Hudson on her way to the boat, Billy still pointing out legitimate reasons that the entire plan is sketchy as hell. Look, I get why Flint dealt he had to do this (He was pretty sure the fort guns, ship guns, and landing party were going to cut pirate forces to pieces), and I get why Eleanor thought she had to do this (The loss of Nassau kills any chance of her desperate plea to her Grandfather saving Woodes Rogers, while the Urca gold could fix things. I get why Madi backs Flint's plan (They need to sacrifice Billy anyway if they've any hope of re-allying with the slaves who are revolting and who are their best hope of keeping the island, and Flint's plan better serves the needs of the formally enslaved people generally). This doesn't mean Billy is wrong. Did I not say last week that Flint had made an incredibly bad decision? I stand by that.
* Mrs. Hudson fills in Woodes Rogers on the plan. Woodes Rogers is clearly team hell no. Eleanor fires warning shots at her husband's ship, trusting Flint not to trick her into holing her husband's ship. Flint advises er correctly. Mrs. Hudson does as Eleanor asked, not telling him about the baby, but instead pleading with him to stop. He seems to comply, but actually simply comes up with an out of the box plan, one which I think is actually significantly worse than Flint's. Just saying. Seriously, no good is coming of any of this.
* Madi sides with Flint when Silver explains Flint's plan, for perfectly rational reasons listed above. Silver says, "Jesus, you sound exactly like him." Yep, Madi and Flint have rather a lot in common as become obvious in the period between the loss of Silver and the finding him again. They both combine a practicality that will sacrifice anything and anyone with big picture thinking. (I have often argued that this is where Flint and Eleanor tend to overlap too, and this season Billy is Flintlike in his new willingness to sacrifice people in this way to his cause). Silver asks Madi if it all ended and they had to walk away would he be enough for her. Ouch. He does not wait for the answer.
So Silver has Flint and Madi on one side and his genuine friendship with Billy Bones built up over season three mostly, and the whole Billy gave him a lot of the power he has thing which makes that betrayal worse. It was at this point, I guessed that Silver would betray Billy when push came to shove. It took me a bit longer to figure out how. (I worked it out when the note about the exchange reached Eleanor. I know, slow as molasses.)
* Is that the cell Charles was in or a different one? Can anyone tell? I need to go back later and compare shots and blocking. I think that this cell is laid out the opposite of the way Charles' was, his shaft of light being to the right of the door and Flint's to the left from our perspective. If so these are mirror images physically, even as they are mirror images in tone and consequence There is certainly the same painterly use of light and shadow in this scene. Flint is reading in a shaft of light, and something about it reminds me of early modern paintings of monks and martyrs. I do not think that is an accident. Could anyone see what he is reading? It was far too small and dark on my screen. He stands politely for Eleanor like a good ex-Navyman. He asks for news, she gives him what little she has. I thought of them meeting in her office long, long ago in Season one and how much has changed for them both as allies and enemies and individually as people.
Eleanor asks if Mr. Scott is dead in a way that clearly assumes he is. This is another mirror image of the Charles scene that centered around dead Richard Guthrie. So you have two dead father figures, one in a scene full of fury and accusations in which Charles insisted he was trying to set her free, and when in which Eleanor's whole sense of her own history is shaken by the realization a person she deliberately kept enslaved for all her claims to care about him, had a whole secret life and a family and people he was protecting from her and her terrible father. Yes, I'm all on Mr. Scott's side on this one. Last season as he was dying he said he had one daughter, not two as he was dying and good for him. Anyway, they discuss Mr. Scott's life, that he'd sent his wife and daughter away during the Spanish raid and that they are still alive, which helpfully fills in the gaps of Mr. Scott's backstory for us too. Anyway, on to Eleanor's identity crisis. This was the same Spainish raid that was so formative for Eleanor also, and that was in my head as I watched this: the horrors she witnessed as a young girl that shaped her policy decisions and personal choices later, the way it changed her relationship with her father, the way it made her so determined to never have another invasion like that again, the same invasion her husband is planning to reenact in her name by the end of the episode, and isn't that going to infuriate her? She says, "For so long I thought I knew what I was: A daughter who usurped her Father. A woman who had taken control of a wild place. Scott was proof of that, of one who saw me that way too, who substantiated it, but all that time what he saw was a girl so ambitious, she would never doubt his story. So she would continue to play the part, draw everyone's attention away from himself." Flint validates her, "You did do all those things," but she points out, "I know I did, but always with a man behind me doing his damnedst to bend it all to his benefit: My Father, Scott, Charles, you, So god many damned men. Too many God damned men." Flint points out, "Woodes Rogers. He's really so damned different from the rest of us?" he's not wrong. Neither of them are wrong on that one.
* Back to Woodes Rogers and Mrs. Hudson. "I had concerns when we first arrived in Nassau. I told her as much. That the Instincts that allowed her to survive so long there, to thrive there would eventually return and that when they did it would cause conflict between us." Ummm hmmm. So basically everything that makes the real Eleanor the real Eleanor has to be suppressed to fit in with his vision of who they are together and his vision of a tamed Nassau. She mutilated herself for a man of this ilk. Eeeew. "I fear the instincts that have awoken in her are more insidious than that. She has begun to believe again that disorder in Nassau is inevitable. That civilization is powerless either through lack of will or capacity to do anything about it. Civilization has a number of faces. To think them all powerless to alter Nassau's future is a terrible mistake." And the face he has chosen is Spain and his solution is to burn it all down. Everything Eleanor and Max built. Fuck Woodes Rogers and the ship he sailed in on. Seriously. He destroys what he claims to love. He is the worst of the pirates because he's willing to destroy everything including himself and the woman he claims to love if they does not suit his specific idea of what they should be. This is very definitely the man who keelhauled Teach three times and who committed that atrocity against the surrendered Spanish. This is the monster we've been talking about all season. He is worse than Ned Low because Ned Low was a small scale threat working for a simple idea of his own benefit, but Woodes Rogers would burn the world down for spite and profit. The others did terrible harm, no doubt, but they were all trying to build something. Woodes is a creature of vengeance and pride.
I do give him credit for intelligence and personal courage, but that doesn't change the fact that I hate him and always have. Seriously, the whole sailing into Havana harbour in the middle of a War with Spain to parlay with a man personally still furious about the atrocity just mentioned to ask them to burn his own colony to the ground took massive courage. May I point out that Thomas personally tortured and killed the younger brother of the Governor of Havana's younger brother in vengeance for Thomas' Rogers death even though there is no way a Midshipman had any say in when a ship surrenders? I'm expecting the Spanish to turn on Woodes Rogers they second it is convenient and deservedly so. Woodes Rogers is a War Criminal representing a Poiwer they are at War with and one of the victims of the war crimes is the Spanish commander's brother. How is this not guaranteed to bite Rogers; in the butt? This is maybe the worse plan in all of Black Sails. (I am telescoping the Woodes Rogers bit of the plot into one section, because I honestly don't have much more to say.)
* Back to Billy and Silver watching them refloat the pour abused walrus. Billy tries again to tempt Silver, ironically leaning on the they'll follow you, you've become the legend I thought you could be angle. That is so going to bite him in the ass, or more specifically the leg and several other body parts. Silver calls him on his bullshit, "This doesn't have anything to do with reason and you know it. You want them following me only to the extent that I in turn follow you. I'm a convenience designed to aid you in ruling over Nassau with the same uncompromising grip you vilify from Flint." There, it's in the open. Silver agrees with me that Billy is becoming Flint without noticing it himself. Silver points out they gave their word to Madi, her mother, and their people. Billy repudiates that deal as Flint's, perhaps because he missed the whole Madi/Silver relationship while waging his propaganda campaign in Nassau and then being off on the Underhill estate for the reunion that would have made it obvious. Billy's really only seen Madi as Flint's ally and that was during the period Silver was presumed dead, and so he miscalculates, thinking this simply a matter of flint's narrative capturing Silver and not a much bigger question of fundamental loyalty to the ex-slaves and not just an issue of manipulating the Bones/Flint/Silver dynamic as it was for most of season three. Billy's not wrong about the guaranteed defeat, by the way.
* Next we get Silver agonizing out loud about his decision to Israel Hands in a way that instantly reminded me of Flint in his cabin talking to silver way back when Silver first realized flint must hate himself because Flint cared how they saw him. The problem is, Israel Hands isn't Silver. He has no patience for agonizing, and he's not silver's friend; he's Silver's follower. Like Flint once told Billy and Blackbeard once told Jack Rackham, you never show weakness, fear, or indecision before crew. Silver asks Israel what he should do and explains his conflict about the decision. Israel's rebuke is harshest of all. Israel slaps him. Twice. "You don't know. You don't know. Why should I follow you if you don't know. Why would anyone! I don't give a shit what goes on in there! Fuck Flint; don't Fuck Flint! Fuck Billy, don't fuck Billy. I don't give a shit what you chose, but fucking chose! Don't make me suffer the thinking. Worry ain't a good look for a king, not in a kingdom like this where loyalty is in short supply." Israel Hands is a primeval pirate, a pirate from the early Golden Age. He was the pirate Blackbeard cast aside for the more civilized thinky Charles Vane, who in turn gave us Jack Rackham, a modern talky pirate in touch with his feelings and with relaxed ideas about gender roles. It's like one of those old fashioned charts showing the progress of evolution if you lines them up that way: Hands, Teach, Vane, Rackham. I am wondering now if maybe Israel Hands was too rigid in his thinking, violent, and chaotic for the pirate republic men like Blackbeard and Hornigold were setting up in Nassau, just as Blackbeard was too rigid, old fashioned, and violent for the Nassau Charles Vane and Eleanor Guthrie were trying to build. Now the snake is eating its tail.
I think the blocking on this one is mirror to the long ago flint scene, if I remember correctly. In both you have the leader sitting at a desk with a big widow behind him. The difference is, there was much more light in Flint's captain's cabin and for Silver, they are half in shadow. In the Flint scene, Silver was to Flint's left (our right); in the Silver Scene, Hands is to silver's right (our left). All of which makes sense as tonally these are opposite. Flint had been training silver in command that season and they were becoming friends. Here crewman Israel schools King Pirate Silver and shuts him down.
* Boat, assumed to have the Urca share is spotted at rendevue beach. Billy points out to Silver there is no time and he has to decide. I like that as Billy moves away Silver turns into shadow. The transfer plans are put in motion. I am guessing the way the sequence was shot and cut together was intended as a fake out, but I think it was pretty obvious what Silver had to do at this point. Anyway, Eleanor completely understandably questions the change in plans. Flint explains a logical tactical reason for it and reaffirms his faith in Silver. Eleanor and her group move through the tunnels to violins reminiscent of the Reigns of Castamere. Billy stands alone in front of the wrong hole, while Madi meets Eleanor, Flint, and her guard to take them to the beach. One of the interchangeable white crewmen with beards comes out to stand with Billy. (I couldn't look it up due to all night internet outage, and I really do have trouble distinguishing them). It is shot to look like a betrayal of Flint, but of course it's Billy being betrayed by Silver. "This isn't right. All those men out there you and I have fought along side, I can't believe I'm the only one who knows this isn't right." Indistinguishable bearded white crewman explains that Silver changed the narrative to make it Billy, not Featherstone or Max who intercepted the warning to the fleet. "Long John Silver. All he had to do was open his mouth, say your name, and everybody listened." Long John Silver achieves his full power, snatching control of the narrative away from Flint and Bones. "I don't think anyone actually believed it. You weren't indicted based on the facts, or our suspicions of your motives. He just said it." *shiver* If that isn't terrifying I don't know what is. So poor honest indistinguishable seaman dies defending Billy and Israel hand stabs Billy several times, but Silver stops him killing Billy, sending him off to the Underhill estate instead (theoretically because he feels bad about betraying his old honest friend but really, I think because Billy has Treasure Island plot armour).
* It turns out not to be the ketch with the treasure, but rather Jack Rackham with a cold bucket of reality for Flint and Eleanor. Jack tells him off, and rightly so, I think. "But it's all meaningless unless and until HE agrees. Woodes Rogers." Which he absolutely won't. Cut to Max and a dismayed lobsterback watching the Spanish Fleet turn up in numbers far to large for the Pirates or the Fort to stop. "I watched him defeat Edward Teach in battle, outnumbered, and through sheer force of will. I saw his blood lust with my own eyes. That man will never surrender his position here. He will never allow himself to be defeated by you or I, not because we bribed him, not because Eleanor Guthrie told him so. He simply will not allow it to happen."
*****
* Full list of Resistance and charity links has been migrated to my profile as it was getting out of hand.
* Help pay for cat food, litter, meds, medical copays: Paypal [email protected]
* Want Game of Thrones without the creepy? We desperately need new players. We are very inclusive. "Game of Bones MUSH:" gobmush.wikidot.com