‘It’s like the crowning of the world. It’s insane. Very disco. You’d love it.’
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"They painted the world full of shadows and then tell their children to stay close to the light. Their lights. Their reasons, their judgements, because in the darkness there be dragons. But it isn’t true. In the dark there are discoveries, there are possibilities, there is freedom in the dark, once someone has illuminated it." --Captain Flint, Black Sails, 2014-2017
Max becomes self aware of how her relationship with Anne mirrors Eleanor’s relationship with her and she resolves to be more compassionate and to prioritise their relationship
Silver becomes self aware of how his relationship with Flint mirrors Flint’s relationship with Thomas and he. does that.
[image description: a still of Flint from Black Sails walking with determination. text in the middle says, “I just gotta make it thru the next 52 weeks.” end id]
James Flint does not like Black people for the majority of the show, like that man fully does not consider Black people in his politics until season 3 when he washes up on Maroon Island. And his move to ally himself with Madi’s people doesn’t come from a genuine place of wanting Black liberation as an end in itself. Rather, he sees the maroons, and enslaved peoples in the colonies, as a means to an end–an additional force to bolster his ongoing campaign against imperial powers. Does he come to genuinely love and care for Madi and her cause? Of course, it’s in the text. Does he realize that peaceful negotiation with England will not result in them giving up the wealth and power they’ve accumulated through violence? Does he realize that [he] is not free until all people, especially those on the margins, are free? Eventually. But like with many white activists, he centers his experience in his actions and does not consider things like intersectionality until later. All these things could be true at once.
But of course, this ginger man is not a real person. If we wanna get deeper about it and point fingers, Steinberg has gone on record to say that he and the writers were hesitant to tackle the issue of racism and slavery for fear of not doing it justice. Which is a cop out, because in the Colonialism is Bad Show, Steinberg and them [checks notes] decide to center their show around white people. An extra season could have been dedicated to introducing and fleshing out Julius, Madi, and the unnamed Maroon queen. Mr Scott could have been a main POV character from the beginning to parallel Max. But alas, Black Sails poignant themes of anti-colonialism and revolution were examined through a predominantly white lens, which in itself is violence, because it sidelines stories of it’s racialized characters to the dark; these stories exist in subtext, in the undercurrent of the show, when it should have been it’s center.
Reading treasure island and I am hit with the horrible realization that the black sails writers saw how Flint was presented and thought “Let’s create a man whose worst fear is exactly this. Let’s create a man who rails against the idea of his story being simplified to ‘monster in the dark; children’s scary story’ and is ultimately utterly powerless to prevent exactly that.”
They saw a man who haunted the narrative and thought, “But what if he didn’t want to?”
“Well, it’s a certainty if we anchor and try and ferry ourselves and all our cargo ashore, our long-boats will be easy targets for Hornigold’s guns. In the absence of any better suggestions, yours was worth a try.”
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?
