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knowlesian · 2 years

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i’ve talked about it through a super narrow lens, but because i love the izzy’s revenge scene in e9 and there’s a bunch going on/acres of unspoken and very cool history at play, why not. time for a line by line!

we start with izzy, sitting and eating what looks like a steak, flanked by a standing ivan and fang.

the thing about captain hands is: he’s tough, yeah. but also, he’s fair, as ivan and fang can attest to. needs more salt.

so after asserting he can speak for them, izzy does not pause ask fang or ivan if they agree. he doesn’t even let them respond at all; just demands fang put more salt on the meat for him, despite the fact that it’s right in front of him and it would actually be easier to just do it himself.

the history of the spice trade is one that’s... ooof. if i start talking about islands razed to the ground and endless scores of people murdered over nutmeg and pride, i will never stop. suffice to say, the demand for spices (and desire to keep them out of the hands of fellow colonizer competition) is inextricably linked to the whys and the hows of this era of colonization.

the use of salt in particular carries a lot of resonance; one of the stories told about columbus and his proverbial “first contact” with indigenous people was that he stumbled over some local taínos— the spanish would later name this particular group the lucayans— just out collecting sea salt and went, oh shit look what i discovered!

(how true this version of the story is... look. there’s a lot of debate going on as we speak among historians about which modern island was the first landing spot at all, so the point is it’s one of those things that businesses will quote and not cite their sources, because a neat little trivia fact like ‘salt was there at first contact!’ stripped of all nuance helps... sell more salt. ew. love 2 live in a society.)

so: there’s a lot of oomph in that there demand. moving it on along, as the music starts to gently rise behind izzy’s Moment Of Triumph.

all right, all right. listen up, listen up! work hard, keep a spring in your step, and you’ll all have a long tenure aboard... izzy’s revenge.

con just CHEWS on the word revenge for a minute while he says it, as the show allows izzy to enjoy the taste of power on his tongue. this is his ship now: this is his revenge. look at him, dad (metaphorical and societal)!!!! he’s doing manhood and masculinity right, everyone is gonna see it and goddamnit he is going to get his entirely earned reverence and applause. right? right?????

...right?

lol no. the music drops out, and wee john starts to laugh at this sad little man and his sad little powertrip.

because why wouldn’t he laugh? fuck that. ‘do what i say, exactly how and when i say it and pretend you’re happy about it no matter what, and then you’ll be fine’? i would snicker at somebody who said something like that, and i know that because i have snickered (usually where they could not see me, admittedly) at managers who said shit like that.

here’s the thing about living aboard a ship irl that i would assume is also true in the show despite the dream logic of canon: no matter what’s going on there is always more work that could be handled right then and there, always always always. it’s a little like working in a restaurant; at any given seeming lull in the action, there’s 1000000% a chore or task left undone that needs attending at some point, maybe even soon. however, the key words there are ‘at some point’.

that’s the problem with the respect and immediate presumption of skill and perfect authority izzy is demanding from the crew; it doesn’t matter what practical skills he does or does not bring to the table, he hasn’t earned anyone’s respect and actively runs around doing a lot to make sure if he doesn’t course correct and sincerely attempt to display anything resembling real solidarity and mend some fences, he never will.

when it comes down to 'but what about the practical measure of his Good At Pirating Quotient!’ i would say izzy’s skill with a sword is not in dispute so much as his skill with adaptation, and he’s seemingly good enough at sailing to stay on ed’s ship or he wouldn’t be there. however: there’s a pretty big difference between meeting the standard/keeping up your end and absolute mvp, The Most Skilled and Important in every single way. you can be a good pirate and not be the only reason a ship’s afloat; a lot of the oomph to izzy’s character build for me is that it’s not the usual ‘he’s just so goddamn right and skilled and above everyone else it’s understandable that he treats people like shit and he doesn’t ultimately need to change that because look how good at everything he is!’ mode on any level.

izzy’s a decent pirate, but he’s certainly not a pinnacle of the career who simply isn’t being given his due. the men in that bar in the finale do not give a single fuck about izzy hands; and sure, they don’t actually know him or ed. but fang and ivan know them both, and thanks to fang we know for a fact ed’s crew referred to him as izzy the spewer behind his back before canon started.

i think it’s notable that the people who spend all their time around izzy do not like or particularly respect him— i’d say it’s because he never really gives them a reason to, either through personal interactions or grudging acknowledgement of his practical skills because they are irreplaceable and fall far outside fang or ivan’s own capabilities.

on the other end of the spectrum, ed does shit like make fang kill his dog and fang still respects him. he’s also clearly holding the world’s most valid grudge on that one (and seriously: what the fuck, ed, justice for fang’s poor dog and justice for fang) but they contrast fang’s immediate ‘oh fuck, boss is here!!!!’ when he thinks ed is back with ‘oh, izzy??? yeah if it’s still just him who cares, none of us actually give a fuck about that guy on his own merits and we tolerate him because ed likes having him around for whatever fuckin reason’ when it turns out ed’s still gone. and ivan is the one who pipes up all ‘that’s why you DO NOT doubt the captain!’ in e4.

(this is part of why i don’t buy izzy is handling all of ed’s day to day enforcement, and that the crew rarely saw ed because he was hiding away. ‘most emotionally available’ implies a lack of emotional availability, not a lack of physical presence. if it had been some variation on 'i haven’t seen him this much in ages’, ‘usually we never see him’, sure. but a comparison on emotional availability literally requires a basis for that comparison.)

so i would argue the crew sees a lot of ed and a lot of izzy, and they have fair reasons to resent them both, but they still respect ed while talking shit behind izzy’s back whenever possible. honestly, the only person we ever see be obsequious towards izzy is geraldo— and i’m not sure given things like jackie’s constant exasperation with him we’re meant to think geraldo is an accurate judge of character or indication of wider opinion.

izzy is good enough to pass muster or he wouldn’t be there, and as long as everyone plays by the rules he holds to and doesn’t think outside the box, he seems to do battle/executing prisoners type shit pretty reliably well. however: the only supplies we ever see him ask about or show any interest in are munitions (weapons and ammo) and every single time we as an audience see him insist/demand a specific sailing chore must be done at the very moment he wants it done, it is never once about an actual immediate need.

(even the request for munitions is not actually the right call to make; they would have been blown to smithereens. it’s an out of the box let’s be a lighthouse!!! plan that saves them, just like surrendering and invoking the act of grace was the right swerve to make in e8 instead of stede’s initial izzy-like idea to go ...idk, let’s just start shooting first???? see where that preemptive attack life leads, seems like not a bad idea at all.)

so, narratively speaking, the thing we are meant to take away is not that izzy is just always right and underappreciated and making everything work, but rather that he is quite often wandering around being a real jerk to people and he needs to knock it the fuck off. even more than that: that it’s not a sign of good leadership when you consistently treat people like shit and call it a necessary evil, or if you admit you do it but refuse to do any real work to curb that impulse and change that behavior.

there is a pretty big gap between a person knowing how to do something on a technical level and knowing how to accurately gauge if they can do it later and for now it’s time to take a second and eat/take a break/socialize. we can (and knowing fandom, probably will) argue forever, trying to pinpoint izzy’s exact levels on the first; his skill at the second is unquestionably fuckin subzero.

part of being a good leader is being able to discern the difference between when it’s appropriate to say ‘no, literally it’s gotta be now we are in the weeds and there’s no time to waste, this is no joke do it or else time, kids!!!!’ and when a task can wait for later, then being able to communicate those different states of urgency and encourage others to follow suit.

i don’t think we see any of these situations played out via izzy, but both states do exist! there are times in life when your job involves managing people and it’s not a subjective ‘well i just don’t think you should be chatting right now’ thing, it’s a ‘you can’t put bananas in instead of strawberries and say you just have a different vibe than the recipe; unless you are actually asked to 86 the bananas and double the berries, please don’t do that again. additionally don’t lick the nozzles on the ice cream machine anymore, we will be forced to fire you if you keep that up’ thing.

sometimes people need to be coaxed along, and sometimes they need to be firmly told to shape up when coaxing fails to work. but being firm and matter of fact about what needs to be done isn’t being an asshole— and neither is correcting a genuine mistake, because there are ways to urge people to understand when they need to step on the gas or change up the procedure that don’t involve crossing lines into empirically shitty behavior.

honestly, this is one of the differences between a good manager and a great one. the front half stays the same, but a great manager adds a second step: is it possible that in this case someone actually managed to improve upon my procedure, and i should consider a new way of doing things/allow that their different path gets them to the destination required without causing any issues for themselves or the rest of us?

a lot of the time, asking that question does end up on ‘nope, we fill the spice canisters that way for a good reason and this new spin on pouring is getting parsley all over the goddamned floor and i will have to mop it up later, so thanks for that!’

but every so often, it ends up the other way and you realize you can fit six rolls in the bag instead of four and then you only have to use one bag if you align them like this instead of how corporate said to do it. that cuts down on waste and time spent bagging; everyone rejoices and says ‘ahahaha fuck corporate, those assholes are wrong about everything anyway’. those times are super cool, but they only happen when the people who get the final word on those sorts of things listen to the people who are doing the actual on the ground work.

(yes, i have worked in food service on both sides of the manager line. how on earth could you tell???? etc.)

okay, back to the scene itself. notably: nobody else laughs yet. and other than jim and the swede, they’re all there! buttons is in the background winding rope, lucius is sweeping off to the left, pete is just standing there hanging out on the right, and at this point i think we’re all aware of who izzy had doing the hard labor, no matter where we land on why exactly it happened. jim’s off the ship for the moment, and the swede’s... either i missed him, or he’s there but hiding in a barrel again or something.

point is: wee john is the only one who doesn’t just roll their eyes and ignore izzy, at first.

izzy, quite obviously, is not thrilled that somebody didn’t find that little speech super cool and intimidating.

what’s funny, mr. feeney?

it’s just that... ‘izzy’s revenge’ sounds a bit like an intestinal condition.

once wee john lays it out, everybody else starts to laugh, too. we don’t get direct reaction shots from buttons or lucius and my ears are not good enough to pick out nathan’s laugh by sound alone if it’s there in the mix, but everyone we see outside fang and ivan— including pete— are now unified in agreeing, yeah. that does sound like a gnarly stomach bug and izzy’s being a dick, we don’t need to keep our heads down in hopes he won’t notice us and pretend otherwise.

as an audience, we get an extra punchline because we know: it’s funny because it’s true. izzy’s revenge sounds like montezuma’s revenge, which is a colloquial term for traveller’s diarrhea and supposedly a curse laid down and/or just the cosmic price white people have to pay for their ancestors’ sins.

so that’s joke made just for us, the audience who live in the real world and know the reference being made, done as a wink by the writers who also know exactly why that’s funny. because that line only makes any sense if they’re referencing montezuma’s revenge, and i find it pretty implausible this team made the joke on purpose and simultaneously had no idea why the term exists, or what it would imply to say izzy suffered from symptoms of the same the single time he took control of ed’s ship. anything’s possible! but i’d lay down money they knew what they were doing there.

although i guess on that first ‘is it a joke the characters get too’ question, it might be more up for grabs: the actual history and the man at hand here is from the 1500′s, even if the term is modern. maybe in ofmd’s world, ‘montezuma’s revenge’ is already a thing people joke about when white people metaphorically or literally head south, cross a border and then immediately shit their pants.

and just as a personal sidebar, because it sort of itches at the back of my brain and bothers me a little bit more every single day: this is why i am less than fond of the jokes and headcanons re: izzy the spewer being about anxiety or lack of dramamine or food issues.

where i keep getting stuck is that not acknowledging or engaging with the montezuma’s revenge connection the show is making and all it implies ends up in some pretty uncomfortable places. ignoring the undertones there entirely inadvertently turns a joke where the punchline is ‘lol, ha ha ha @ colonizers getting a little of their own back, and the metaphorical standard bearer for that history in the form of an angry little man telling people to do things his way or ELSE is being a dick rn’ into a thing where izzy is the victim and we should feel sad for him because he just needs care and affection because until then, of course he acts like this & etc.

it’s not that they’re bad jokes as a matter of course and i’m judging anybody who makes or enjoys any of them; and i would absolutely be the first one to say i would prefer izzy have an arc where he does the work to unlearn all his toxic shit, show some real solidarity for once, and become someone who will allow himself to receive/give care and affection in ways that aren’t damaging everybody involved. and maybe he does have any or all of those medical issues, maybe it wasn’t a one-off and he does throw up all the time, etc etc etc. debating the particulars doesn’t much matter to me on this one.

i’m just saying i wish people would engage with both sides of the izzy the spewer/izzy’s revenge setup and payoff if they’re into the jokes and ‘izzy didn’t just throw up once while in charge, he throws up all the time for this practical, in-world reason’ headcanon lane, because the montezuma’s revenge joke is both funny and really thematically resonant/important.

okay, sidebar over and now back to canon.

thanks to wee john, the crew is united in acknowledging that izzy sucks and his Big Moment was actually just funny.

izzy can’t let that stand; in his world, respect and power are granted after performing elaborate rituals of violence and intimidation.

i wonder what the condition of your intestine might be after, say... no rations for a week?

so, first off because it’s another subtle note of acknowledging without centering historical pain: izzy threatening a character played by a guy from northern ireland (and yes, i very much understand that wasn’t a thing in 1717, but neither were a lot of things that exist in this show) with starvation as a punishment... there’s A Lot being said there in the subtext, done so deftly that if you’re not aware of the history and/or thinking too much about the larger history of ireland at the same time you process that scene, it could easily slip by.

much like the subtle acknowledgments of racism or homophobia existing in the the world of ofmd (because in a world without homophobia or heterosexuality being the assumed norm, why would lucius’s mother just assume he liked girls, and why would he feel any pressure to let her keep doing it?, etc etc etc) trauma doesn’t need to be overt and centered in the narrative to be there.

god, this show is good.

wee john’s face falls somewhere in the middle of izzy’s threat, and when he cuts his eyes to the side to look for support everyone else has fallen silent again. and since very understandably he would like to be able to eat over the coming week, wee john shuts up without further commentary or complaint. he doesn’t look happy about it, but to izzy’s ...credit? i suppose? he gets what he wants in this immediate moment: wee john is no longer pointing out izzy said something that sounded unintentionally funny, and absolutely nobody is laughing.

so, flush with success, izzy looks around at the crew and addresses all of them one more time, making sure everybody feels a little bit of the sting.

any other funny bits?

the subtle thing i maybe love best here is that wee john was just empirically right. izzy’s revenge quite literally does sound like the name of an intestinal condition! so wee john just stated a fact that made izzy feel some kind of way, and izzy went ‘counterpoint: you say something that makes me mad, you eat no food for the next week’ in response.

we all know wee john is right, even those of us in the audience; but nobody on the crew thinks it’s worth a week of no food to say so now that izzy’s set the terms of engagement.

so everyone stays quiet, including wee john, but that’s not enough for izzy. he needs to get in one last reminder he’s a big boy, in big charge, and everybody needs to shut up and respect his authority.

yeah, i didn’t think so.

izzy, bless his motherfucking heart and may gay god love him, thinks this is winning. when you’ve got the power, you can do what you want with it; you go the extra mile to make sure the people under you understand you have all of it and they have none.

because in terms of in-world reasoning, there really isn’t any reason to give that little speech while eating a nice meal except to establish power and then luxuriate in it while reminding the crew their place is below him.

the kicker might be that he’s also being incredibly foolish. it’s not about being a badass pirate, being used to a different life or rules or metaphor canon; mutinies absolutely happen in izzy’s world, and giving a speech to the people who work for you about how they better smile when they say yes, sir and hop to it while you sit there and chow down on a meal they will not be allowed to partake in is a good way to get the ball rolling.

you can eat while they work but be nice and get away with it; you can be an asshole who isn’t flaunting their bounty in the face of someone else’s lack and get by depending on who you’re with, but you can’t do both at once or guarantee future trouble from those holding the shittier end of the stick. the way izzy is acting right now isn’t just arrogant, it’s tactically stupid. there is zero chance it will engender respect and overall good conduct, and every single chance it breeds resentment and makes solidifying any sort of movement against him that much easier.

he’s getting what he wants in the very, very short term by any means necessary; he is not considering that in the longterm, this is the kind of shit that can only come back to bite him.

because what izzy displays in this scene is the kind of unnecessarily dickish behavior that turns a mutiny from a possibility into a slam dunk, you know? the ‘fuck that guy’ factor is often what turns the tide, when people are hesitant to take action otherwise. ‘i hate this job but my boss is nice to me, personally’ introduces a conflict of interest. if you hate your job and your boss... well. all that’s standing in the way then is coming together on the low, making a plan, and having to wait for an opportunity to do something about it.

so if izzy can’t see fit to treat people with a baseline modicum of respect because it’s just... you know. the right thing to do, and because there’s never a good reason to be cruel, he might consider that doing so would be better if he wants to maintain power and not end up thrown to the sharks.

and who knows!!! maybe someday he will. i have said it before, and i will say it again: fuck linear time not existing and ocean travel being more like teleportation, the toxic white guy getting it together and becoming a member of the community instead of resorting to siding with the system when the going gets rough is the twist of a LIFETIME, and i think this team could pull it off.

to end: this show is fucking wild. barely one minute of screentime and you can talk about irish history and taíno history and implicit bias v overt racism and How To Manage Good and some very granular art of war type advice like ‘being literally the worst and threatening people with out of pocket cruelty like starvation encourages people to band together in solidarity against you, and it does not increase overall productivity, merely gains you an immediate— but ultimately false— pretense at compliance’ and then a million other things on top of that.

you can fit ALL the oomph in this baby and i will meet the writers, as ever, OUTSIDE.

#this is NOT EVEN A MINUTE OF SCREENTIME I AM. I HAVE. I AM NORMAL ABOUT THIS SHOW????????#long post. super long post. very long post. hey: if you finished this what's up we're friends now i guess #anyway now to go eat pizza GOD i just fucking love this show #my ofmd meta #our flag means death

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