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im-the-punk-who · 4 years

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Black Sails as John Silver's SuperVillain Origin Story

Okay so I recently got asked about my views on Silver in a roundabout way so HERE ARE SOME OF THEM. I don’t often post about him because honestly I just really dislike him but he’s an extremely well written character and one of the best ‘villains’ I have ever seen portrayed. The reason Black Sails is such a compelling prequel to Treasure Island is that it does not just say ‘John Silver is a villain because he does bad things.’ Like all the characters in Black Sails he is complex, with deep and thoughtful motivations for the things he does. We see him as a villain because Black Sails sets his goals up in opposition to those of the protagonists we want to succeed - Flint and Madi - but he is not villainous in his own right.

But it is the effects of those motivations on himself that, to me, are the most interesting.

And just up front because I know this is a touchy subject - especially coming from, well, me, lmao. This is how I read Silver. If you disagree, that’s cool. Like literally everything else in Black Sails(and fiction in general), Silver’s character is mutable based on your views and experiences. Tomato/Tomato.

So! To me, the most important thing about John Silver’s character in Black Sails, is who he is in Treasure Island. Black Sails is a prequel, and Silver is a major character in Treasure Island. We see his actions in the book(albeit through the story of the man who survives him, and, oof, isn’t that a bit of a kicker). We know that in this future Silver is still a lying, manipulative and mysterious person, hard not to like but hard to know.

That consistency is the most important part of Long John Silver’s character to me: he doesn’t really change from the beginning of Black Sails to the end, because he’s not really meant to.

Silver may not exactly like the person he is but there is no point in trying or wanting to change. In his view, who he is is just as immutable as the world he exists in.

And that's the brilliance of Black Sails.

Silver isn’t the way he is because he is ‘evil,’ or because he wants to intentionally cause harm. He is the way he is because it is the only way he’s worked out to survive. It is “the only state in which he can function.” He does not believe in a cosmic story, in a grand design or justice in the world - and because of that he does not see the point in trying to change something that has kept him alive thus far to appease it.

The entirety of the beach flashbacks is, to me, the summation of both Flint and Silver’s characters but this in particular I feel is important:

-Do you really imagine a few weeks of this is going to make much of a difference? Am I not what I am at this point?

-It's better than nothing.

In the grand scheme, Flint and Silver only know each other for about six months.

Their relationship - especially to Silver - is a transient one. A handful of weeks. Was it ever enough to expect it to make any bit of difference?

But not so for Flint. He truly believes humans are capable of change, and he believes even the smallest bit of progress is worth the effort. Flint takes the things that happen to him and make them a part of him.

But for Silver,

I've come to peace with the knowledge...that there is no storyteller imposing any coherence, nor sense, nor grace upon those events.

Therefore, there's no duty on my part to search for it.

Silver refuses to acknowledge his own story and so is unable or unwilling to see himself as capable of change throughout it. Or even really the need for change. And that’s not said as a negative - that is who he is. That is who his past - whatever it was - has taught him.

And so he consistently acts solely for his own gain, benefit, and safety. Because if he doesn’t, who else is going to?

And this continues the differences between Flint and Silver.

While Silver is very wrong that his past is irrelevant, he is correct in that it doesn't matter. It doesn’t matter what his past is, because we can clearly see the effects of it. We don't NEED to know his past to understand his actions.

However, without knowing Flint’s backstory - Thomas, Miranda, England’s betrayal - his actions don't make sense. They are erratic: they seem villainous and vile and like the acts of a tyrant or a madman. Because his actions are tied to his story.

But from the very first moment we see Silver fight the cook over what he presumes is a chance at living, Silver is clearly trying to figure out what is best for him.

He doesn’t care about Flint’s war, or what the treasure could fund. He doesn’t care about the pardons, and he doesn't care about England. He doesn’t care about piracy. All he cares about at first is the life the treasure could buy him. But when he loses his leg, suddenly the thing he literally spent two seasons fucking everyone over for becomes completely inconsequential, because it no longer benefits him.

It is without relevance.

And through the very last time we see him speaking him to Madi, he is doing the same thing.

That's not to say he doesn't form friendships or care about people. He is, indeed, a hard man not to like, and I think he also genuinely likes people as well. But that doesn’t mean he changes because of them. The friendships he forms with Flint - with Billy, with Muldoon and Randall and the other crew members - the relationship he forms with Madi. They are all real, but they are also all expendable to ensure his own comfort and survival.

In the first episode of season 2 we’re told point blank:

It’s likely that if our interests were averse, I’d betray you to save myself.

And of course at this point Silver and Flint are little more than necessary enemies, Silver has no reason to want Flint alive. But the pattern holds throughout the whole show.

Later in season 2, when Flint is thinking about changing tactics to prioritize the pardons over the gold, Silver has no problem screwing over the entire crew(minus the two men he’s recruited) to meet his own ends. It’s what’s best for him, and Silver operates on this assumption that every person needs to look out for themselves.

And then again, in the finale of season 2 - he saves the crew because it also means saving himself. When Vincent brings up leaving, Silver says that they would likely be killed if they tried - he’s already considered that option and rejected it because his odds of survival are higher sticking with the crew.

And then of course, in season three, in the maroon cages - you can bet that the fact that flint’s psyche basically controlled whether they all - including him - lived or died was a major driving force behind his dedication to getting Flint to come up with a plan better than Billy’s in which - again - they all likely end up dead.

His relationships with Madi and Flint in particular are deep, and so it is the worst thought possible when he realizes that they are starting to agree with each other, but not with him. When Madi agrees with Flint over trading the cache for the fort, I read this as the true end of Silver’s support of the war because the war now threatens his personal ‘safety.’

Because at that moment, the thing most important to him is keeping Madi - who he not only has come to care for but who supports him. And she makes him know she supports him. And the prospect of losing that is what ultimately I think drives him to planning to send Flint away, rather than bring Thomas there or some other plan.

And again it isn’t maliciousness - not outright. He is doing what he thinks he needs to to survive, because he cannot have enough faith in either Flint or Madi to think they won’t drop him the moment he stops being invaluable. And in the end, that lack of faith is what spells the end for any chance he has at having them in his life.

When he thinks Madi might die if they continue, he doesn’t care if she hates him. He doesn’t care if Flint hates him. He doesn’t care if the relationship is destroyed if he gets what he wants out of it. Madi’s survival. The end of the war. An end to Flint and Madi’s relationship so that he can ‘protect’ her from death and choose how he ‘loses’ her. It is always less painful to be the one doing the leaving.

Based on his world view - that you must protect what is in your own interests and the only person you can count on is yourself - that is the right thing to do.

Over and over we see that Silver is mostly interested in other people through the guise of his interest in keeping himself alive. And I also think that because of that, he views himself as expendable to other people as well.

When Muldoon insists that the crew would take care of him if he needed that, it’s clear that Silver doesn’t believe him. He still believes himself to be expendable unless he is useful. He is constantly managing his image, managing how people see him, managing the things he allows others to see and what dangers or threats they pose to him, because he believes these are the things that keep him safe. Not his friendships, but what he brings to them.

Part of what’s so heartbreaking about Silver’s arc in season 4 is how terrifyingly close he comes to believing himself worthy. He wants the war because the two people who mean the most to him, who he sees as vital to his own survival - Flint and Madi - are both committed to it. And he’s committed to them. But I also think that just for a second, he starts to see their vision.

When things are going well, when he can’t see the body count, he comes so close. But then of course, when everything falls apart and he is forced to confront once again the horrors of the world, he retreats.

That line he has:

And as long as (I have his true friendship) he is going to have mine.

I see that get thrown around a lot as a declaration of love, of deep feelings - and it is, to an extent. But it is also a sign of the deep mistrust that Silver harbors even when he is not looking to.

Even in this moment when he has Madi, when it must seem like they are nigh unstoppable and Silver himself is poised at the head of this great thing - when he and Flint are closest and when, I assume, Flint couldn’t fathom betraying him. Silver is still thinking in the eventuality that it will happen.

I have his true friendship, and as long as that is true, he is going to have mine.

Silver’s love is always conditional. And that doesn’t make it any less ‘real’. It doesn’t make it any less important. But it does make it easier to take back. And that’s important for him!! It’s important for Silver’s own safety that he never rely on someone so much that he cannot cut them loose if they pose a ‘danger’ to him.

And to me, that’s the most important thing to realize about Silver. He is a ‘villain’ - and again I use the term loosely because he is ONLY a ‘villain’ because our protagonist’s stories are set in opposition to his - because he will always put himself above the grander goal.

We see this in Black Sails, and we see this in Treasure Island. John Silver betrays Jim even though he feels conflicted about it. It isn’t until the very end, until Silver sees once again the same opportunity flash before his eyes where someone he loves is in danger and he cannot live with their death, that the treasure itself becomes unimportant again. Black Sails does an incredible job of giving us an antagonist whose defining trait is that he cannot see himself being meaningful in any way that matters.

Silver ends up destroying just about every relationship he has because of this inability. Time and again when he is faced with an opportunity for growth that comes with hard decisions, he chooses to destroy himself. Because it is easy.

It is easy to destroy the thing you do not care about, it is easy to destroy yourself if you don't value yourself. To call it winning because at least you are still alive and the things you’ve had to sacrifice are merely unimportant - inconsequential. But thinking like that hurts not only ourselves, but others too.

And it is not that Silver puts himself first, plenty of other characters do that as well - Miranda, Jack, Max. It is the fact that Silver must deny himself in the process that makes him the villain not just in Black Sails, but in his own story. And THAT is the origins of his supervillain story. That he is, in fact, his own.

#black sails #john silver #milos black sails meta #black sails discourse #black sails meta #we'll see how this goes over lmao anyway CATCH ME ALWAYS SAYING THAT THE WHOLE POINT IS THAT SILVERS INABILITY TO CENTER HIMSELF #/MAKES HIM THE VILLAIN/ AND THATS FUCKING BEAUTIFUL #long post

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capblacksails · 6 years

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This is not what I wanted (aka THE scene we were robbed of)

Feel free to visualize the 'Previously on Black Sails' screen :) :) :)

"This is not what I wanted. But I will stand here with you… for an hour, a day, a year… while you find a way to accept this outcome… so that we might leave here together. For if not… then I must end this another way."

John knows his hand starts trembling. He knows his eyes are near tears. And yet, he sees it in Flint's eyes: Flint believes John will take that shot.

Recognition. Flint knows his motivation, and he knows what it brought himself to do. Hatred is simple. But Love? Love is a much more vicious motivator. It makes you start a war, to avenge someone. It makes you eliminate a threat, to protect someone. It makes you kill - even those you don't want to kill, if they only dare stand in the way...

The worst, though, is to see pity in Flint's gaze, under the rage and disgust - because even if John has his way, today; in the end, they both know John will be losing anyway.

But of course, Flint won't relent. Always fighting, to the end. "You know I can't. Accept this outcome? You know WHY I can't."

"And that's exactly why I hope you will!" John shakes his head as he realizes he sounds in his despair now like a petulant child.

But Flint's eyes surprisingly soften from it somehow. "You can't change my mind. And you know it; isn't it why Morgan is here..." The last of it ends in a whisper, and what it says, and doesn't say, is a blade through John's heart.

John can only weakly refute, aghast and appaled: "No, it's not!" - because even though Morgan, indeed, must be their navigator at some point, it isn't the primary reason for his presence here now.

John takes a breath. He needs to calm down and stay in control. He's aiming a gun at *James*. He can't afford any mistake.

"This, I swear, is not what I wanted. It was already not anymore what I had originally intended, but it was a simple plan: we would recover the treasure, and then I would tell you, and then the treasure would disappear on my way back to the Island… Why did you have to- Why do you always get what none of the others do… Because now? I tell it to you now, and you won't believe me. But you *have* to believe me."

James looks unsure now. This isn't John's normal way of speaking - even without the stuttering: it's poorly constructed, and all in riddles. John can only hope that James will understand that the growing panick means he is being sincere, actually; just as sincere as he had been that day on that cliff, even when refusing to share his past.

"Thomas is alive."

From the first moment those words had been a possibility, before they turned into a certainty, John had wondered how they would sound when he would say them, and how James would react. But now, they're out, in a single, barely audible breath, and he's not even sure James has heard them at all. He starts again: "Thomas-"

"Don't you fucking dare!"

The Wall, once again, rises instantly. James is nothing but barely contained fury now, and can't refrain from taking another menacing step forward, no matter the gun facing his chest. John knows the warning is real, no hesitation about that. Still, John would be ready to say it, again and again, between the blows he's sure would come; again and again, until James might *hear* the words for what they are, and not for what he thinks they mean. John can't though. Because if they start to fight, Hands will end it, long before James does hear him - John can't see his proclamed guardian, but he's certain he's around.

So. John doesn't repeat himself. He knows James heard him anyway. They eye each other in dreadful silence; and John waits, waits for a sign that the words made their way past Flint's skull and reached James's heart; waits for a sign that James realizes that John has been hinting at this before, that John is not making it up just now as the cruelest weapon ever imagined; waits for a sign that The Wall is crumbling, finally.

"It can't be."

Then only does John lower the gun, and explain.

"When it was just Hands and me… Max tried to kidnap me one night - and told to me later on what she had planned to do with me afterwards. There's a place near Savannah, where she intended to have me locked up; a place where, her words, wealthy London families pay to turn in troublesome family members they wish to make disappear. A place where they're kept, and stop to exist for the outside world. When she told me this… You couldn't bear even the thought of it, and I understood. Hoping would have been too cruel, in case... You couldn't. So I had to find out. I sent Morgan: that's why he's still here - in case my word isn't enough."

"It can't be."

"It was a gift. I hoped it could be a gift. But when I learned my hope was actually truth, Madi was-, and then she wasn't, and then you… Nevertheless, when I unburied the cache, I took some out; because if it was giving me Madi back then it should give you Thomas back too. But now: Rackham came, and turned my gift into a bargain; yet at least, at least, I thought it would save your life. Because Rackham and Max found allies in Philadelphia, to make Nassau as free as it can be, without a war, under a seemingly English rule. But before it may start? You were to go - that was their allies's condition. So the only choice was between bad or worse, and I used my knowledge the only way that was left. I convinced him to let me solve this problem for him, in exchange of him backing me up about getting rid of the treasure. We can't buy Thomas out now; you're to be bought in. And I am sorry that this is the only deal I can offer you. But Thomas IS there, James."

James looks at him as a man whose world has been turned upside down and inside out that one time too much. He surely doesn't even realize what John does realize - that he's just called James by his first name... 'You', or 'Captain', until then, had always been enough. James has never called him 'John' either, by the way... Maybe it's John's despair showing - that he has to insist about the fact that he is talking to him. Maybe it's because he calls him more and more 'James' in his head, as time goes by - especially whenever James looks at him with a vulnerability he barely shows to start with, as right now... Anyway, apparently it doesn't seem to have to mean anything: James hasn't even noticed...

John doesn't even recognize his own voice as he starts begging. "Let me take you there. Please."

"I can't believe you."

"Please!"

"I can't believe you. But I want to. I hate myself for it, but I want to."

And now only does James avert his eyes, declaring forfeit, or seeing things that aren't there before his eyes, who knows…

John feels relief course through his blood, and is oh so thankful for it. "That's enough for me for now. You'll believe me when we get there."

"I'm not giving the treasure up to you though. It is not yours."

John wants to sigh - or maybe laugh: a dark, empty laugh: James just always has to fight. But as long as that chest stays far from Madi's hands, John doesn't really care where it is. He can always tell the men James has sworn to tell its location to him when they arrive in Savannah, and later, well, he'll find something else to tell… Isn't it what it means, being *Long John Silver*?

John still hasn't spotted Hands. There is no time to lose - John has to take profit from James's still shocken state, and have them all leave this forest right now. So John's gun gets up once more, and James, which is devastating, is fucking ignoring it, even when it's aligned with his heart, his head.

"It's not optimal, but I will do without."

The gun pursues his way up. The shot is delivered towards the sky - a call his men can't miss.

"Six days, if the winds favor us. But please keep quiet; I have a show to perform."

Six days are long. James turns bitter only a few hours later. He is locked-up and in chains by then (the men wouldn't have it any other way - Rackham's work probably - and James has consented, when John had been the one presenting the manacles). Morgan is the one navigating, and Rackham keep their mixed crews in check on his own as often as John thinks it possible, while John can't help but stay with James in the cabin for much longer periods of time than Hands would like, simply because it's the only way he can think of to ensure that James will keep quiet. Rackham had seemed happy enough to agree to let John secure the less definitive solution; but he had warned John that he would not hesitate to be expeditive if needed...

James doesn't say anything, but John can feel it, each and every moment they share in silence - the accusation in James's eyes, about having been deceived, and by a coward. He probably thinks that Thomas isn't going to be there, and that John has found a way to make him disappear without actually having to kill him - and probably not even because he wouldn't want to have to live with it, but only because it would be a lie less he would have to tell to Madi. John faces those eyes, and only replies with a plea in his own.

So it's a surprise, when at the end of the fifth day, there seems to be something else, something fragile in James's gaze. But John can only nod, and give James a fragile smile in return.

(For the record, it took them 8.5 days to reach Savannah…)

#black sails #john silver #long john silver #silverflint #james flint #captain flint #the missing scene we were robbed of!#my two pieces of eight #fanfic #from the embers of the shadows in our pasts a phoenix will rise #where my universe starts #all the feels #starzblacksails

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runawaymarbles · 7 years

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Black Sails Fic Rec

Silver/Flint

shaking at the sight by vowelinthug | 1k | T |

two pirate kings, united vs. an entire island's naval forces.

the island didn't stand a chance.

look for something left in this world by vowelinthug | 2k | M |

it’s a nice day for a white wedding

too bad they aren’t having one

yer mother darns socks in hell by youatemytailor | 4k | M |

Christ, Flint thinks. He fucking hates Freetown.

el cuentacuento by straddling_the_atmosphere | 4k | NR | +Silver/Madi

At the end of the day, John Silver is an unreliable narrator.

Or: a storyteller’s story.

show me the way to go home by vowelinthug | 8k | NC-17 |

set during 2x4, in which Silver and Flint take a much-deserved time out and enjoy a drink or seven

and they both learn a valuable lesson about each other

namely that neither one has ever had any chill whatsoever in their entire goddamn life

let us possess one world by vowelinthug | 8k | NC-17 |

They return to Nassau after their defeat of the British Navy, only to be met by Agitator Billy and his propaganda machine. This is why Captain Flint tries not to let other people decide things.

In which: Flint wears a disguise, Silver tells a terrible story, one bathes the other, and only one man died the whole night which is, like, definitely a record for them.

What's in a Name? by Craftnarook | 9k | NC-17 |

Some conversations in the dark between Flint and Silver, set during episode 3x09. They have a moment alone in the Maroon camp, after Mr Scott's death, and what begins as curiosity and sharing develops into rather a lot more.

you are the queen and i am the wolf by vowelinthug | 10k | NC-17 |

They call him John the Giant.

Flint calls himself James the Early Risk for Heart Failure.

Don’t Fear the Ships (Fear the Black) by farasha | 11k | NC-17 |

“You can’t read sea charts.”

“Can’t is a strong word.”

Flint teaches Silver how to sail. As with everything they do, there’s a lot more going on unspoken.

Or, Silver tries to convince Flint that it would be a bad thing if he died.

ya filthy animals by vowelinthug | 12k | NC-17 |

Flint and Silver could be rulers of an illegal organization, major mob bosses, kingpins, criminal masterminds, etc.

But then they could also be petty shoplifters who like to drink during the day and fool around on their houseboat.

With Nothing On My Tongue by RosieTwiggs | 14k | NC-17 | +Silver/Madi

“Silver thinks: Maybe God likes it when I fight with him.

He wonders now, whether he’s been playing into God’s plan all along. Because no matter how angry he gets, how defensive, how many “fuck you”s he flings to the heaven, isn’t it all just proof that he still believes God is there, despite it all?

Silver doesn’t know how to counter that.

Maybe he doesn’t want to anymore.

Blue all in a rush by twofrontteethstillcrooked | 16k | NC-17 |

There were dozens of questions Flint wanted to ask. He chose, "Did it not occur to you I would find out you were here almost immediately?"

st. augustine is that way by vowelinthug | 18k | NC-17 |

James Flint had yet to meet a conversation he couldn’t avoid.

John Silver had yet to meet a routine he couldn’t disrupt.

(post-show domesticity, with oranges)

we must unlearn the constellations to see the stars by lacecat | 19k | M | + Flint/Thomas, Silver/Madi

Silver wakes up each time to a different day in his past.

He thinks that if this is his purgatory, he can’t say he doesn’t deserve it.

Sail These Roads and Back Again by neverfaraway | 20k | M

James has fled the New World for the Old, shed his name and found quietude in his solitary existence. That is, until his favourite worst memory appears on the farm track, collapses upon his sopha, and refuses to be shaken loose. While Corsica smoulders and war becomes ever more likely, Flint and Silver enter a war of their own: to reclaim their past and forge an uncertain future.

gonna need a bigger boat by lacecat | 20k | Not Rated

“You really want to say that, when you’re sitting across from a man who lost his leg to a shark?” Flint scoffs. "There is no way a shark took your leg!" "Of course not," Silver says, smirking. After he draws the silence out, for what feels appropriately dramatic enough period of time, he adds, "It was two sharks."

Tell me we're dead and I'll love you even more by Craftnarook | 22k | M |

In the year 1725, or thereabouts, John Silver finds himself driven by a storm into an inconsequential little port town, barely a speck on any civilised map. Returned to the life of a drifter, tired and rough around the edges, he is resigned to waiting for the weather to pass before he can sail on again to the next town, and the next, and the next. That is until he overhears a conversation in the inn about a local fisherman, one Captain Barlow, and his tall tales of tempests and becalmings, devils and sharks, and Silver finds a new future opening up to him, haunted by the spectres of his past.

John Silver Can’t Get There From Here by Apetslife | 33k | Series, G-E | + Silver/Madi, Anne/Jack

Or: Fuck Treasure Island, And Also Actual History, And Probably Season Four Canon, Too

“He is so terribly in love with you,” Madi murmurs to him from out of nowhere, sitting easy in the curve of his arm in the shade of their small porch.

Fifteen Men in September by ballantine | NR | 34k |

Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

A Black Sails origin story for the song.

turning saints into the sea by lacecat | 86k | NC-17 | + Flint/Thomas, Silver/Madi, Miranda/Flint

They say she arrived in Nassau during a hurricane. They say that she brought with her a priest she had kidnapped to father her children, whom she then turned into storms to guide the direction of her ship. They say she has sworn to kill as many men on this Earth as she could, that she bathes in the blood of young children ripped from their mother’s breasts to attain immortality, doomed to serve the seas forever in return.

In reality, Silver has seen Flint conjure exactly zero storm-like offspring, but she does know how she speaks with the sort of conviction that if she were a man, they would write books about her. There’s a stiffness to her posture that speaks of someone who might better be found in a London parlor rather than a dusty brothel in the Bahamas, and yet she has a fierce temper that rivals any man’s on the island, a dangerous look about her like the air rippling over fire.

Silver/Flint/Hamilton(+)

The Isle of Hope by ElDiablito_SF | 16k | M |

When a heartbroken John Silver arrives in Georgia ten years after the events on Skeleton Island, he doesn't quite have it in him to face Flint. Instead, he concocts a scheme to befriend Thomas, and gets more than he bargained for in exchange

The Tether Series by stele3 | 58k | M |

“So you did find him,” the man says faintly. When Thomas looks up he finds himself caught in perhaps the strangest regard one person has ever given another, a gaze that absolutely does not dissuade Thomas from the notion that a feral, scavenging animal has broken into their home.

Smallpox Verse by vowelinthug | 70k | T-NC17 | + Madi

post-finale, where everyone learns a valuable lesson about communication and smallpox. (no one actually gets smallpox.)

The Canterbury Tales by Wind_Ryder | 133k | NC-17 | +Madi

Pirates. Attacking Georgia. A part of Thomas wants to believe that there’s nothing at all relating the events outside to the events in his personal life.

But when he turns around and sees John Silver slipping in through the backdoor, he very much doubts that’s the case. “Tea?” Thomas asks blandly, throwing the latch and shutting his blinds like a good Puritan man.

Flint/Hamilton(s)

the stars and she who runs with them by alovelylight | 1k | G |

When she declared Peter Ashe a traitor, her heart beating fury into the expanse of her body, she knew this was what James felt like. The constructed castles of civilization falling to the ground, dragons from the dark breathing out and destroying all the lies they hold dear. This was what she wanted; this would be her peace.

Time Covers All Things by lilithi|ien | 12k | T | +Silver/Flint

She imagines it will be liberating to take a new name, to adopt a new life. The next day, as she steps off the gangway onto the island sand, she tries to leave who she was behind like a snake shedding its skin. She can almost get away with it. How Lady Hamilton becomes Mrs Barlow.

The Witch Queen of Nassau by shirogiku | 12k | NC-17 |

After James is captured by the Navy, it falls to Miranda to organise the rescue. Nothing goes according to the plan.

Revenant by BethWinter | 18k | T |

After Charlestown burns, Abigail Ashe meets a man who says he was a friend of her father’s. He gives her a choice.

The Far Waste of the Waters by more_night | M | 22.5k | + Silver/Flint, Silver/Madi

James McGraw removes Skeleton Island from his mind.

Somewhere in Boston by redwhale | T | 29k | + Laura Moon/Shadow Moon

Mr. Wednesday tries to recruit the dread pirate Captain Flint for his war against the New Gods, and runs afoul of Thomas Hamilton in the attempt. Meanwhile, Shadow just wants a new goddamn book to read, is that so much to ask?

Soon after, on the trail of Wednesday and Shadow, Laura and Mad Sweeney find themselves in a charming bookstore in Boston...

Unaccommodated Man by kvikindi | T | 27k |

It is at this point that, for the first time, Thomas Hamilton begins to consider that he has gone mad.

The Sundering Sea by x_art | 137k | NR | Flint/Thomas

Stepping into the foamy surf, gasping at the force of it, the surprise of it—it had been breathtaking. Thomas had been that for him, his boundless sea, and he wasn’t ashamed.

Max/Anne (+)

you'll always paint my sky by mapped | 2k | T |

She still loves Max, and it gets harder and harder to deny it to herself.

(Anne through the second half of S4.)

histoire à tiroirs by straddling_the_atmosphere | 3k | T | +Max/Eleanor, Max/Idelle

histoire (n): a story, a fictional tale, a narrative account, a lie

Or: Max and shifting sands

Bounteous by willowbilly | 4k | M | Anne/Max/Mary/Jack

It’s a queer hurt, almost like the relief of peeling off an old scab, to feel her heart pulling in three separate directions and to feel it expanding to encompass the whole damn rest of the compass rose rather than be so fragile as to rip itself asunder. Anne never would have thought, before, that she’d be this fucking caring. That she’d had such a deep well of love waiting untapped within her, way down.

kintsugi by princejake | 6k | T |

Anne nestles into his shoulder, her hair brushing against his cheek, and suddenly Jack can breathe properly for the first time in weeks. Here they are, together, in balance as they’ve been from the beginning. Complete again.

When he opens his eyes Max is watching them from across the street. Her posture is carefully neutral, but her eyes are… solemn. Stoic. Filled with a kind of barren peace. She always could convey so much with just a look.

Something twinges uncomfortably behind Jack’s breastbone. /Oh./ Perhaps not so in balance after all.

Other/Misc/Gen

no man’s land by rhllors | 2.5k | T | Jack/Anne/Mary

The man on the deck looks back at them, considering. He’s handsome but he oozes violence; armed, scarred, tall, hair slung round a bandana, the same colour of a recently opened wound. “I’ve heard of you,” he says, with an infliction she’s not familiar with: somewhere from the continent, not French. Perhaps Holland. “The name’s Read.” he continues, eyes tracing the rim of her hat. “Mark Read.”

armed with the past and the will by whimsicalimages | 3k | T | Silver/Madi

The language of winning and losing, this language that men favor – Madi can speak this language, though she disagrees with its precepts. Success takes different forms, and failing once does not mean failing forever. It does not even mean failing the next time.

Gone to Port Royal by Apetslife | 3k | G | All the pairings

Definition of Valhalla 1: the great hall in Norse mythology where heroes slain in battle are received 2 : a place of honor, glory, or happiness : heaven

same bottle, same gun: two shots by AstronautSquid | 5k | T | minor Flint/Thomas, Max/Eleanor

„I will walk,“ Flint interrupted her objections. „You have just maneuvered yourself into a position of considerable power on this island, and now you have gone and cast aside a man the island admires and fears. It won’t do for you to be seen sharing a horse with me like a wounded young girl.“ Eleanor stared up at him; a wounded young girl full of curses, with a rifle resting like a sleeping babe in her arm.

[Nassau, 1708. Eleanor Guthrie remembers a moment in the life of Lieutenant McGraw. Captain Flint doesn’t.]

what’s a king but a heavy name by thatsarockfact55 | 51k | T | Mr. Scott/Maroon Queen, Madi/Silver, background Flint/Silver

In the quiet night, one stranger tells another what he has always known: “I have been so many names, Long John Silver, and if not for love I would be no one at all.”

One story of a spirit, a slave, a father, and a pirate king, told in seven parts.

Winds of Change and Chance by PanBoleyn | 60k | T | (eventual Silver/Flint, Miranda/Thomas, Flint/Hamiltons, Flint/Silver/Miranda)

In which a thief and his daemon make their way onto a pirate ship, and vastly underestimate how hard it will be to get off again.

Well, the thief does. His daemon had a feeling this might happen.

#black sails #black sails fic rec #silverflint #flinthamilton #silverflinthamilton #flinthamiltons #maxanne #maxanor #op #rec list #fic rec

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feathersandblue · 7 years

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I don't think you're being fair to Madi. You're only looking for ways to make Silver look better than he is. He betrayed Flint and Madi because he couldn't stand the thought of losing her, it's not as if he really cared about anyone else. Silver did a fucked-up thing, he betrayed the woman he claimed to love and he sent her away so she couldn't stop him. And then he treated her as if she was the one who needed to "understand" what he did, like, that's some form of gaslighting right there. ---1

No. HE betrayed her, and he needs to understand what that betrayal cost her. Not only her but every enslaved person in the Americas. Silver had no right to do what he did. I hate that the showrunners didn’t address that. She should have kicked him out. He has no right to be on her island. Silver betrayed her, and I really hope she leaves him and he spends the rest of his life being miserable. —2

Nonnie, I think you’re a little too used in seeing things only in black and white. You’re accusing me of wanting to make Silver look better than he is, but the only thing I get from your aks is that you mean, I have to see him like you do.

I’ve written plenty about Silver, his motives, his reasons, yet you’re addressing none of my arguments and basically just repeating “what he did was wrong, he had no right” like a Hail Mary of Black Sails interpretation.

Look, you dont have to agree with me, but if you send me an ask, I’d appreciate it if you took the time to come up with something that goes beyond a reiteration of “Silver is a horrible human being.”

A couple of other things.

1. When you say, “Silver had no right to do what he did” - then I wonder what that means, exactly, because we’re clearly not talking about any kinds of “rights” granted by law here. We’re talking about your idea of what Silver should or shouldn’t be allowed to do, what kind of power he should or shouldn’t wield, and it means that you feel that his agency should come with stipulations that you, personally, impose on it, based on your own sense of morality but also on what you, personally, find especially offensive.

This is an interesting approach, and it’s pretty easy to see how, when applied to other examples, it’s becoming a mostly arbitrary judgment of certain characters and their actions.

Did Anne have the right to kill her crew for Max’ sake?

Did Flint have the right to kill Gates?

Did Flint have the right to sink that merchant vessel in 3.02?

Did Miranda have the right to ask for a pardon without telling Flint?

Did Vane have the right to take the fort from Hornigold?

Did Madi have the right to ask Silver to dispose of Billy?

Basically, when people say, “this person didn’t have the right to do that thing”, they are usually very particular and subjective in their judgement.

2. “Gaslighting” is not what Silver is doing with Madi in the scene. He’s telling her what he did, and he voices the hope that she will be able to understand and forgive him. He declares his own determination to wait, for as long as it takes. That’s not gaslighting. He’s not making her doubt her own perception. He’s not lying to her (or at least not in a way that he isn’t also lying to himself). Justifying yourself to someone, and describing your actions in a way that is meant to make other people understand them and relate to you is not the same thing as trying to deceive them. “Gaslighting” has become one of these terms people tend to throw around without knowing what they mean. But in this case, it’s really not appropriate.

3. Concerning the fact that “he betrayed Flint and Madi because he couldn’t stand the thought of losing her, it’s not as if he really cared about anyone else”, that’s an oversimplification.

Yes, it was the prospect of losing Madi that was the catalyst for Silver’s decision to side with Jack and Max. And, yes, his motivation was that he couldn’t bear to lose her, and that he wanted her safe more than he wanted her to have that war she desired. But, and here’s where the text is on my side, that is not all there is to it.

I’ve written extensively about how Flint is motivated by rage and desperation to wage this war. But it doesn’t change the fact that he has good arguments on his side for why this war is necessary, and that he sees a fundamental, systemic form of injustice and wants to fix it. Flint’s actions are both selfish and altruistic, in that he wants a better world for everyone involved, but the reasons why he pursues this goal in such an extreme and uncompromising fashion have nothing to do with altruism and everything to do with his rage and grief.

Silver, on the other hand, is a survivor, someone who lacks that inherent ambition to change the world for the better. He gets drawn into this war for a variety of reasons, and he follows Flint’s example for the better part of season four without ever believing in his goals. For that reason, it’s much more difficult for him to determine whether it is really the right path. He’s deeply conflicted, and that innner struggle becomes more pronounced as he sees the price that other people have to pay for Flint’s war. Silver is not sure that it’s a good thing. But it’s only the experience of almost losing Madi that propels him into action,the thing that finally tips the scales. However, the underlying understanding of the war as a wasteful and horrible thing is not rooted in that - rather, it’s a a part of the way in which Silver understands the world. It’s fundamentally different from the way Flint and Madi see it. The show has made it very clear that while Flint and Madi are shaped by their history - their personal experiences - the same is true for Silver, even though his past is not revealed in detail. This fundamental difference in personality - in the way these characters view the world and their own place in it - is not something that can be the subject of moral judgment.

The conflict between Silver and Flint is not one between selfishness on Silver’s part and altruism on Flint’s, because both of them have selfish and altruistic motives. The conflict between them is as old as humanity itself - what is the price of a war, and is that price worth paying?

For as long as humanity exists, this question has not been answered, and I expect it never will be. People who have gone through a war, who have experienced its horrors first hand, are often among those who try their hardest to prevent another one. For example, the current era of peace in Europe, brokered after WWII, was the result of an agreement that the two world wars had been so horrible that war was no longer an option.

And yet, inevitably, there are always people who, faced with the reality of a corrupt and crumbling system of government that presumably withstands all their attempts to reform it from within, think that a revolution is necessary. Of course, these people start out with the best of intentions, but the result is often an ecalation of violence that turns countries into warzones and wastelands.

Black Sails is a show about pirates and outcasts, and we are meant to sympathize with their struggles. It would hardly make sense otherwise. And so, understandably, it spends less time showing the aftermath of a battles than the battle itself and its victories. For example, we see the battle on maroon island, and we see Flint, Silver, and Madi victorious - we don’t the women and children mourning their husbands and fathers, parents mourning their chilren, we don’t see the wounded dying in agony, we don’t see the corpses being thrown into a mass burial site.

In season four alone, Nassau is raided twice - once when the pirates retake it from the governor, the second time when the Spanish raid the island. The Spanish invasion is shown in greater detail - the rapes, the plundering, the killing - and because it was Rogers who ordered it, who is clearly painted as a villain, we are quick to blame him for it. But in truth, the Spanish raid was only another turn of the downward spiral which several parties contributed to.

For a US American TV show, Black Sails is actually rather good at describing the historical dialectics of revolution, counter-revolution, war, peace, action and reaction, that we can see everywhere in history - and it’s very good at showing two conflicting view points which are irreconcilable, and which are also universal to the human condition - everywhere, at any time where people disagree on how to best fight systemic injustice. In the Black Sails finale, one of these view points is vocalized by Silver, who has just gone through a personal awakening of sorts - almost losing Madi, realizing, through an encounter with the cook on board of the Lion how far he, himself, has come in turning into Flint. The importance of that scene can not be overstated - really, for Silver, it’s like coming full circle, realizing that from a person who was trying to protect himself from acts of violence, he has turned into a person who routinely engages in them; from someone who wants to escape a war to someone who brings it about. It’s the moment where Silver realizes that he has become the very thing that turns other people’s life into a fucking nightmare. The other viewpoint is vocalized by Flint, who believes that changing the world for the better requires to bring civilization down, that the only way to make progess is through a violent revolution.

There is no middle ground between those positions, in that moment, there is no way to overcome that fundamental divide.

No matter where you, personally, stand on this issue, I think that denying the significance of this conflict between Flint and Silver, and the fact that there are valid arguments made on both side - treating the whole thing as it if was nothing more than Silver being a selfish asshole - means doing a massive disservice to a show that has given us these wonderful, layered characters, and an excellently written storyline that includes many universal and highly difficult, complex topics, and doesn’t shy away from leaving this conflict unresolved, which is something very rare.

#black sails #captain flint #john silver #once more with feeling #once more for the people in the back

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